Drive & Track: IoT Cuts Costs Sustainably

18.01.2021 by Daniel Kunz

Three vans transmit data on the move; (above left) two men talking as they look at a monitor screen.

With fewer miles logged, less wear and tear and less fuel consumed, IoT solutions have enabled the parcel delivery service J.R. Company to reduce its vehicle fleet’s running costs by ten percent.

Hop out of the vehicle, hand over the parcel on the doorstep and on time, have the recipient confirm delivery on the handheld scanner’s display and input his or her name as you walk back to the van. For a parcel delivery service these workflows simply must run smoothly. Under contract to UPS in Austria, the J.R. Company’s couriers deliver up to 6,000 parcels a day in Styria and Carinthia. Its 120 vehicles cover 26,000 km a day on the routes they serve. How fast do they drive? How hard do they brake and accelerate and how long do they spend idling? These are interesting facts for fleet manager Günter Flicker because an unruly style of driving has a palpable effect on the delivery service’s business statistics. But rather than just hoping his drivers will show common sense and be resistant to stress as they drive and deliver, the fleet manager prefers in the performance of his duties to rely on facts and figures from the Internet of Things (IoT).

IoT for Sustainable Fleet Management

For about three years Flicker has managed his vehicle fleet digitally with Drive & Track, a Deutsche Telekom IoT solution consisting of a tracking module that is permanently installed in every delivery vehicle. The tracker contains a GPS module and a SIM card. The tiny device sends its sensor readings from the vehicle to a cloud via Telekom’s wireless network and the Internet. When a driver takes a seat in his van in the morning he clocks in with his ID and the cloud-based system knows who is at the wheel and which route he will be taking today. The fleet tracker records automatically the location, speed and time spent driving and sends this data continuously to the IoT platform. On the solution’s Web portal the fleet manager plans all routes efficiently and monitors his drivers’ work. Drive & Track helps him to manage the firm’s fleet operations more sustainably. The drivers save time and mileage, the J.R. Company saves fuel costs – and the fleet’s carbon dioxide emissions are reduced.

Fleet Management by Drive & Track: The Benefits at a Glance

Efficient: Optimal deployment of vehicles, employees and company goods
Transparent: Constant clarity about vehicles’ actual location
Optimal: Proactive vehicle maintenance based on mileage
Controlled: Detailed analytic reports on all IoT data
Uncomplicated: A plug-and-play upgrade solution with an intuitive Web interface
Safety: Prevention of traffic infringements and coaching for drivers

Costs Cut by 10 Percent

Fleet manager Flicker has worked out – jointly with his drivers – an optimal style of driving based on evaluation of the IoT solution’s data. The connected delivery vehicles have since been driven more carefully, effectively reducing wear and tear. Hard acceleration, taking bends too fast and speeding have become the exception. The J.R. Company can see in its own workshop the extent to which the new style of driving reduces wear and tear of its vans. Thanks to modern fleet management the vehicles are subject to 30 percent less damage. The cost of spares such as tires, brake linings and clutches has been halved. In addition, efficient fleet management saves the company between € 300 and € 400 a day in fuel costs. So the new technology saves € 90,000 a year.

Smart technology has enabled the fleet manager to reduce fleet running costs by 10 percent. Along with efficient route planning the solution makes employees’ day-to-day work simpler and easier. The smart IoT application can allocate a fuel receipt digitally to the vehicle that is refueled, for example. It also keeps a logbook automatically. Tiresome and time-consuming administrative and damage management is dealt with swiftly and easily and there are fewer errors.

Fleet Management by Drive & Track: The Functions

Live maps: Vehicles and goods can be located live and optimal routes can be planned
Reporting: Detailed analytic reports on all data, including engine and sensor readings, reported events and interactions
Fleet performance: Event-based measurement of vehicle performance
Real-time alarms: Automatic notification in the event of theft or vehicle use outside working hours
Accident recognition: Immediate notification when a vehicle is involved in an accident
Driver behavior and driver ID: Driver analyses and notification about traffic infringements such as speeding

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Daniel Kunz

Expert Digital Marketing

Digitization and the Internet of Things are among the favourite topics of Daniel Kunz. He has been with Deutsche Telekom since 2017 and regularly writes about technology trends and many exciting topics, especially for the retail trade and the logistics industry.