Capitalising on the financial value of data collected by telematics systems could dramatically lower, or even offset, the cost for fleets rolling out the technology, according to supplier Geotab.

Edward Kulperger, Geotab

Based in Toronto, but with a growing presence in Europe, the company has 750,000 devices in use across 100 countries, generating a combined 1.6 billion data points per day. Of that, only a third is location-related information, the rest mostly coming from monitoring vehicle systems.

Aggregated effectively, including extracting data from connected cars, vice president of Geotab’s European operation, Edward Kulperger, believes this could have a value beyond helping fleets to operate more efficiently. It could provide a detailed picture of traffic and road conditions, which means fleets would be generating data with a financial value for third parties.

“Where now the hardware now is almost a necessary evil, if the OEMs could send the data in the right way to some aggregator type platform, then you could see so any different mobility models evolving from that; the vehicle becoming a utility, the telematics platform becoming pennies on the dollar in terms of getting data from the vehicle and presenting it in a way people want.

“Whether it’s ride sharing, or car sharing, are there consumer-type initiatives and advertising that come into that, which shares the cost. All of that is playing out, but we feel if the hardware is embedded, and they send the data in the right way, that this will become a data play where the consumer will benefit and not have to pay certain costs.”

But, he added, that push may have to come from outside the telematics industry: “We stay laser-focused on the fleet side, but getting organised on Big Data early on, we believe will pay off down the road. We can’t be the ones to push a model, but we can be an enabler and a platform for that model for the fleet.”

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