Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/409540
COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2014 43 technology the fuel efficiency application, says Jason Morgan, president of SmartDrive. The SmartDrive Fuel app is designed to give drivers a score that shows how their fuel-saving behaviors compare to other drivers and to the target mpg for their vehicle based on individual maneuvers and route characteristics, such as the mix of freeway driving versus city routes. SmartDrive also captures fuel-ineffi- cient events on video that fleet managers can review with drivers to improve certain behaviors such as shifting techniques. The video is displayed on a dashboard with digital gauges that show additional concurrent data such as rpms and speed for context. "That is much more impactful than showing a telematics report," Morgan says. Real-time analytics Zonar's new ZFuel application is designed to analyze and visualize complex data to help fleet operators and drivers improve fuel efficiency. In the heavy-duty truck market, Zonar is a major player in connected vehicle technology. The company has about 100,000 telematics units in vehicles from Daimler Trucks North America. Zonar's hardware and cloud computing platform powers DTNA's Virtual Technician remote diagnostics and Visibility telematics offerings. ZFuel gives drivers a fuel efficiency score that shows how well they performed under the circumstances. The application also calculates the amount of money that drivers could have saved on each trip – each ignition on/off event – if had they done everything right. When using the online ZFuel applica- tion, a fleet manager could start by look- ing at a ranked list of drivers according to their fuel efficiency scores and fuel losses. The manager then could drill down and see how individual drivers performed on particular routes. The performance of one driver could be compared against other drivers who drove the same route. ZFuel has an interactive map display to identify problem areas. Clicking on a route's red segment zooms in and charts all the variables – speed, temperature, incline, use of cruise control, etc. – on a time scale for that segment. The ability to analyze and visualize fuel efficiency stems from the methodology Zonar uses to capture and transmit data from the vehicle. If a vehicle is in a hilly area or in the city with frequent stops and turns, the computer will sample more frequently than if the vehicle is running down a long straight highway. The ZFuel application is an option for Zonar's fleet management system. Text INFO to 205-289-3554 or visit www.ccjdigital.com/info