Mobile Assets Monitoring for Fleet Maintenance 2005-01-1436

Fleet managers are continuously looking for ways of increasing the operational efficiency of their fleets and reducing cost. Key aspects are containing downtime, improving fuel economy, reducing maintenance cost, and increasing vehicle residual value. Moreover, there is also great interest in coaching drivers by stressing safety and encouraging best driving practices.

Telematic tools are becoming more affordable for monitoring fleet utilization remotely, eliminating the error-prone process of manual recording and providing an efficient way of analyzing vehicle utilization. An important benefit of remote electronic monitoring is in the ability to tailor maintenance practices to fleet operating requirements. An even greater benefit is achieved when the system incorporates remote diagnostic capabilities so that vehicles can be serviced faster and more reliably. On-board vehicle utilization profiling can be combined with off-board model-based predictive analysis for implementing cost cutting measures in servicing the fleets. However, the complexity and affordability of the infrastructure required to support such systems are key issues for making remote fleet monitoring a growing business.