Fleet Management Data for Business Advantages

A telematics platform that leveraged data and behavioural analytics to optimise fleet operations and management.

Customer: Hertz
https://www.hertz.com

Who is Hertz?

Fortune 500, Hertz is one of the largest rental car holding companies with a 36% market share, operating in 160 countries. It operates one of the largest rental fleets under the Hertz brand, Dollar Rent A Car, Firefly Car Rental and Thrifty Car Rental.

About the Project.

Delivered a telematics platform that put vehicle data into Hertz’s context and consumer behaviour intending to optimise fleet management. Our solution allows Fleet Telematics to provide real-time data gathering services on vehicles, providing fleet managers with improved control and monitoring. The safety system allows the fleet to operate optimally, and the data context gives them a clearer understanding of vehicle usage and maintenance, leading to better forecasts for vehicle life. Using this system, our customer recovered more than USD 2 million in assets over 3 months while significantly increasing customer loyalty through improved consumer experiences.

The Challenge.

Fleet management adds a level of complexity to fleet operations. Fleet Telematics provides fleet managers with better control and monitoring through real-time data gathering services on vehicles. This real-time data informs the fleet manager how effective and efficient their fleets support their operations.

The various vehicle makes, and models are some of the more significant challenges for telematics. Most manufacturers do not provide real-time information on a vehicle's location or active sensors. For those that do, the data is provided in a way that is proprietary to the manufacturer. This is similar to operators who use 3rd party technology to manage their fleet and better understand their operations – the 3rd party provider (OEM) has its methods for data collection and analysis and how it interacts with a vehicle.

Fleet telematics does not end with connecting to the vehicle. Once connected, the gateway must send data to a back-end provider. The back-end aggregates and analyses the data, presenting it as actionable information for fleet managers. The problem here is that it only provides raw information, usually without the context needed to make effective and efficient decisions around fleet management.

The Solution.

This project was instrumental in unifying and simplifying the supply chain between multiple vendors and OEMs and allowing for a consistent data collection and normalisation approach.

Compliant with privacy laws, regulations and GDPR, the platform collects insights and prescribed data points that identify inefficiencies, mobility issues, and other statistical information, mapped against several benchmarks, to optimise Hertz fleet. This feature/functionality enables Hertz to make critical decisions that ensure optimum safety and asset utilisation with insights that show vehicle usage with maintenance and term-of-life forecasts. Key features include real-time vehicle location, which helps recover vehicles efficiently when they go missing.

The platform is entirely designed with a serverless approach and utilises AWS services. Key services employed are Kinesis, Lambda, SQS, SNS, API Gateway, Sage Maker, Location Services, and secured using AWF, Key Management System, Firewall, and Shield. The development process was articulated with tests first in mind: the entire solution embeds behaviour end-to-end automated testing. Thus, it leverages the benefits of infrastructure as code that automatically deploys the platform as a whole at each build and tests it end-to-end. Using this approach allowed for a rapid build with confidence that production deployment would fulfil the customer needs and meet the definition of ‘complete’.

Want a copy of this Case Study?

Architecture Designed & Delivered.

Spark-Case-Study-Telematics-Architecture

Outcomes & Successes.

Spark delivers leading fleet management and telematics technology solutions that put data into context, allowing vehicle rental and leasing companies to make smarter decisions - improving their bottom line and customer experiences. Here are just a few of the outcomes and impacts this solution had:

  • Over USD 500k in asset recovery each month
  • Heightened customer experience and loyalty through improved user experience from booking to the start of vehicle trip
  • Effective forecasting of vehicle location and usage that leads to improved maintenance planning
  • Drastically exceeded fuel-saving forecasts
  • Vehicle optimisation that promoted less used vehicles.

Our Work Makes You Look Good