16 August 2012

Telematics-based road risk management is being introduced by Fleet Support Group, which claims to be Britain’s biggest fleet management specialist, looking after 55,000 vehicles.

The move follows the acquisition of the company late last year by US-based Automotive Resources International, a business that operates in a similar space and is said to have 860,000 cars, trucks and equipment under management in North America and Europe.

Automotive Resources, or ARI, is said to have established expertise in telematics by taking a supplier-agnostic line, and building up a body of experience of the telematics market.

This expertise has now been harnessed by Fleet Support Group to augment its RiskMaster system, which is described as an online occupational road risk management programme.

Through this expanded offer, telematics data can be linked directly to a user-company’s overall fleet management system, providing fleet decision-makers with a single point for information analysis.

One user, Stannah Lifts (Holdings), says it has recorded an 8 per cent fuel saving across its 600-strong fleet since introducing telematics technology in company cars and vans.

ARI’s agnostic approach to telematics is instructive. According to Tony Candeloro, its director of customer information systems: "In our experience it is very rare for one telematics provider to truly be able to meet the reporting requirements across an entire vehicle fleet."

Instead, he says, the company uses multiple systems, and normalises the data to provide a single view of fleet performance.

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