Better Fleet: Why telematics data still isn't informing the bottom line

Most fleets have more data than ever before.

Vehicle location. Driver behaviour. Fuel consumption. Utilisation. Idling. Maintenance schedules.

Modern telematics platforms can reveal almost every aspect of fleet activity in real time.

The problem is that much of this data still sits inside operational reports; fleet managers can see what's happening, but many businesses still struggle to understand what it's costing them.

The issue isn't collecting data

Telematics adoption is now widespread across UK fleets.

The challenge is no longer visibility, it's interpretation.

A vehicle may spend an hour idling every day. A depot may consistently use more fuel than another. One group of drivers may experience higher collision rates.

The data exists.

But unless those patterns are connected to fuel spend, maintenance costs, insurance performance or productivity, they remain operational observations rather than business intelligence which is where many fleets still get stuck.

Benchmarking is exposing hidden inefficiencies

One of the most interesting developments in fleet management is the growth of benchmarking platforms.

Historically, fleets measured themselves against last month, last quarter or last year.

Today they can compare themselves against thousands of similar vehicles operating in comparable environments which changes the conversation.

As Michelin Connected Fleet points out, fleets often become accustomed to their own performance levels. Benchmarking provides external context that can reveal inefficiencies which internal reporting alone would never identify.

A fuel consumption figure might appear acceptable until a comparable fleet is achieving significantly better results with similar vehicles and routes.

So the danger isn't always poor performance, but becoming comfortable with performance that only appears good because there's nothing external to compare it against.

Neil Cawse, Founder and CEO at Geotab
Neil Cawse, Founder and CEO at Geotab

Data often stops at the fleet department

Another challenge is organisational.

Telematics data often sits in one system. Fuel cards sit somewhere else. Maintenance data lives elsewhere. Finance teams work from entirely different reports.

As a result, operational insight rarely reaches commercial decision-makers in a meaningful form.

That matters because fleet activity influences far more than fleet budgets. It affects productivity, service delivery, insurance performance, vehicle lifecycle costs and ultimately profitability. As Neil Cawse, Founder and CEO at Geotab, puts it:

"Benchmarking gives fleets the context they need to understand performance, identify opportunities for improvement and make more informed decisions."

Without that context, fleets risk measuring activity rather than outcomes.

The strongest fleets connect operations to cost

The fleets seeing the biggest gains increasingly treat telematics as part of a wider business intelligence strategy.

They are connecting:

  • fuel consumption to driver behaviour
  • vehicle utilisation to replacement planning
  • downtime to productivity
  • risk events to insurance costs

The result is a much clearer understanding of where money is being spent and where it can be saved.

The market is moving beyond telematics reporting

The next phase of fleet management isn't about collecting more information.

Most fleets already have enough data.

The challenge is bringing operational, financial and utilisation data together into a single view that supports better decision-making.

In the next article, we look at what effective fleet cost intelligence actually looks like in practice.

More guidance in this series:

Better Fleet: what effective fleet cost intelligence actually looks like

Better Fleet: a practical playbook for connecting telematics to fleet costs

Join Better Fleet for best-practice planning that's proven through real-world case studies:

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