The digital tachograph is a valuable tool to make informed decisions, plan smart schedules and manage compliance, says Derek Bryan at Verizon Connect.
The primary purpose of the digital tachograph is to help enforce driving hours, but it can do much more. A modern ‘live’ digital system simplifies compliance and removes the need for physical access to vehicles to download data.
Integrating tachograph data with fleet management systems also allows you to view drivers and their tacho status in a live map with start time, drive time remaining, next break due, next rest due and much more. Integration of all your fleet data such as location, speed, job arrival or departure time, fuel consumption, and idle time, along with tachograph information, gives you total visibility of your fleet operation.
This data, analysed and presented by your fleet management system, can help you to spot trends and discrepancies in your fleet to drive efficiency, productivity and safety across the board. With the data being streamed in near-real time from the in-cab fleet management system, fleet managers can empower their colleagues and customers with a range of innovative new use cases.
Examples include: seeing the status of the drivers with live map integration, seeing vehicle location and driving hours to assess who is within safe limits for the next job, and providing customers and partners with precise status updates based on a driver’s location. Once integrated into a fleet management solution, digital tachographs help improve and automate business operations, as well as to close gaps on your competitors, promote safety, grow revenues and react fast to customer needs.
Access to data, whenever, wherever
Digital tachographs can stream data to the central base of operations so fleet managers can access the status of drivers, the vehicle and engine virtually at any time and any place. This provides fleet managers with near real-time access to a complete overview of the tachograph status of every driver. Not only does this information accelerate important decision-making processes, but allows fleet managers to plan routing and scheduling much more precisely.
Just one look at the remaining driving hours and it’s easy to work out who to assign new tasks and deliveries to. Most importantly, proactive alerts that inform fleet managers and drivers on upcoming and late breaks, making fleets not only more efficient, but safer too.
Realise the future today
If you’ve researched fleet management technology, you’re likely already aware of the headline benefits. You’ll know how such solutions can help your business work smarter, save money, and improve both efficiency and profitability. When it comes to making the decision to implement such a solution, however, what really counts Is keeping drivers safe and compliant with health and safety regulations.
Research from the European Road Safety Observatory shows that fatigue contributes to 10-20% of road crashes globally, while separate 2018 research from the AA revealed that 13% of drivers have fallen asleep at the wheel while driving.
A digital tachograph not only helps fleet managers to take proactive measures to prevent tiredness from becoming a hazard, but does so in a way that is low-touch, fast and immediately actionable. All other benefits aside – improved customer service, streamlined supply chain management or smarter routing and scheduling – this alone is reason enough to invest in the latest tachograph technology.
