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Any time you have to manage fleets, drivers, costs, and schedules, you are facing challenges such as driver safety and productivity, cost-reduction initiatives, and fuel price volatility. The fleet management system based on IoT (cellular and GNSS) connectivity is able to oversee a fleet of vehicles and related assets, to control costs, productivity, fuel management, and compliance, keeping vehicles and operations running smoothly and efficiently.
Benefits of the IoT-based fleet management
With the growing business and customers’ expectations for faster service, it becomes impossible to manage everything manually. The IoT-based system integrates sensors, data analytics, visualization tools, and learning algorithms making fleets management more flexible and transparent.
Asset tracking: By continuously monitoring the position, condition of assets, and also the environment(for pharmaceuticals and food logistics), the data collected by IoT sensors enable remote asset management and provide managers with real-time visibility into their assets. Not only for management, the transparency brought by IoT will also increase the satisfaction of consumers who may desperately want to know where the goods they have ordered online are.
Cost optimizing: Fleet management IoT solutions can monitor fuel efficiency as well. The connected devices like the tachograph transmit the data including total travel distance, speed, and real-time information on fuel consumption to the cloud, which helps to track idle speed to minimize fuel consumption and extra emissions.
IoT sensors inside a vehicle can detect its regular condition, including battery power, oil level, and internal parts replacement requirements.With the support of these consistent records uploaded to the cloud, the maintenance team can directly target problems or even prevent them in advance to avoid downtime as much as possible. And it also helps the manager evaluate whether additional vehicles are needed to meet the current business volume or whether older vehicles are replaced according to the functionality data.
In addition, the records of the fleet management system can be persuasive evidences for the fleet operators to get customized insurance premiumsand plans.
Route planning：The IoT-based fleet management solutions make the best use of wireless connectivity and satellite positioning, enabling faster and more secure route planning in case of emergencies such as traffic accidents.
Personnel managing: Driver safety is a priority for all fleets. The IoT cameras and meters allow fleet operators to supervise breaking behavior, accelerator mode, and even the driver’s expressions and gestures of fatigue. Fleet managers can timely send an alert while the driver is on the way to correct risky behaviors through IoT networks.
Legitimate compliance: In some countries, it is mandated to record Hour of Service of drivers to reduce instances of dangerous driving caused by fatigue. The IoT-based fleet management system canensurethe fleet operator hasaccurate records and submit automatically to replace paper logging.
SIMCom modules for fleet management
Though the transition has already begun, there are still a large number of vehicles using telematics on 2G/3G networks. When the pace of 2G/3G shutting down accelerates around the world, LTE Cat.1 blooms as the alternative to 2G/3G for its favorable costs and tailored network services for IoT.
SIMCom LTE Cat.1 modules can provide proper transmission rates for data uploading and downloading, remote controlling, video surveillance, and voice calling. The capability of automatic fall-back to 2G/3G ensures the fleet continuous wireless connection on road. Moreover, the optimized RF design brings much more stability to the networking when the vehicles are running at high speed.
The GNSS positioning modules of SIMCom consist of the modules that support standard precision positioning working on a single frequency and dual frequency and the high-precision modules with capabilities such as RTK(Real Time Kinematics), and DR(Dead Reckoning).
Among them, SIM65M is a single-frequency GNSS module with high cost-performance of which the power consumption is 28% lower than the previous generation. And the reception capability has been enhanced which can capture and track any mix of multiple satellite signals. The dual-frequency GNSS module SIM68D supports multi-constellation open services on both L1 and L5 frequencies. As a result, the precision is further upgraded due to multiplied signal accesses.
SIMCom GNSS modules integrate a multi-constellation positioning system with high-performance navigation engine, allowing fleet management devices to achieve high-level sensitivity and precision with lower power consumption when tracking vehicles and assets.
The industrial-grade hardware design of both SIMCom LTE Cat.1 and GNSS modules brings them unparalleled robustness to accommodate the harsh environment. These modules also have acquired complete global certifications and offer competitive cost performance.
As a veteran in the IoT industry, SIMCom’s outstanding R&D capabilities and abundant project experiences guarantee the reliability of its products, plus its encompassing services and familiarity with the global market, which have won over a large group of loyal customers in the automotive and other IoT areas.
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