CIOInsider India Magazine

The Fleet Industry like any other industry is in the midst of technology induced changes at the moment, as more fleet management companies are adopting new processes to improve their fleet efficiency. Managing a pool of commercial vehicles can be a challenging task at times. Fleet management can be carried out within an organization itself, or it can be also outsourced to an external fleet management service provider. Similar to asset management, fleet management is accountable to five broad tasks that include vehicle maintenance, fuel management, vehicle safety and compliance.

The Fleet industry is subject to a lot of challenges related to operational inefficiency and fleet maintenance. With the advent of AI powered solutions, it is possible to tackle these challenges with even greater efficiency. AI based engines are making transport of goods and people much safer, faster and economical. The Fleet Management

industry is estimated to reach a market size of 561 Billion USD by the year 2025, and it is estimated to reach a CAGR rate of 7.6 percent between 2017 and 2025. AI based fleet management solution enables the operators to merge connected smart technologies to not only increase operational efficiency but also enables cost saving, manage existing bottlenecks, and build up driver and road safety.

Supported by machine learning, Video based safety systems have nowadays advanced automation to help review a wide range of video and data and identifying complex risk patterns. For example, it is now possible to detect risky driver behaviours such as inattentiveness and fatigue thanks to the help of face monitoring sensors. This gives the fleet managers an opportunity to detect potentially risky behaviour of the drivers and act accordingly or intervene before something hazardous happens. It is also possible for fleet managers to detect drivers moving beyond the designated speed limits. Such patterns of behaviour are detected with the help of sensors and cameras attached to the fleet which are connected to a Cloud Processing Software. For solving issues related to driver safety behaviour IBM has come up with IBM Watson Fleet management and Driver Safety Solution which is being widely adopted by the companies. The Watson Fleet Management Solution is powered via a Cloud and a set of API’s (Application Programming Interfaces).

Fleet Management Softwares enables fleet managing companies to have information regarding the condition and performance levels of the vehicles at anytime they wish to. It involves all operations from vehicle acquisition to fleet maintenance and fleet disposal. Moreover, it can deal with compliance; reduce the burden on administration as all the information can be regularly updated.

Fleet managing companies tend to see AI as a potential game changer when it comes to improve processes and potentially provide a safer experience for fleet operators. While technology becomes better with each passing day, Fleet Companies are increasingly looking at the possibilities of employing autonomous vehicles as a better alternative which will resolve a lot of the human errors.