Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/678459
52 commercial carrier journal | may 2016 COVER STORY: BIG DATA ANALYTICS Lytx continues to add new sources of data from sensors and external factors such as traffic and weather to pro- vide a more holistic view of drivers to make better risk assessments. "A lot of information that we can learn about drivers comes from how they react to their environment," Cook says. One future possibility for Lytx is to use its driver-facing camera to recognize facial patterns for fatigue and other risks. Rather than monitor the driver at all times, facial recognition could be activated only after trends of risky behaviors are detected using other inputs. PeopleNet's Safety Analytics dashboard, an option in its Video Intelligence application, encompasses information on violations of posted speed limits, hours of service and risky driving behaviors, as well as daily Compliance Safety Accountability violation data from Vigillo, to identify the fleet's most at-risk drivers. The dashboard identifies drivers by degree of risk, says Jim Angel, vice president of video intelligence solutions at PeopleNet. Those with scores in the top 10 percent in each category, and overall, are highlighted in red, followed by yellow and green for the top performers. Comparative analytics An ongoing advancement in big data and cloud computing platforms is the bench- marking ability to compare results from one fleet to industry peer groups to set realistic attainment goals. Lytx shows clients where they rank com- pared to peers in overall safety and fuel performance. "We typically do that with quarterly performance reviews," Cook says. SmartDrive Systems' video safety plat- form captures and transforms complex event and telematics data into numerical values for each driver and the overall fleet. The SmartIQ Scores use a numeric scale – with a higher score indicating higher collision risk – and are normalized by the amount of hours and miles driven. Fleets can use the scores internally to compare driv- ing skills, risks, fuel performance and more for different divisions, terminals and managers. SmartDrive also can compare a fleet's results to the aggregated results of indus- try peer groups. Steve Mitgang, chief executive officer, says a for-hire fleet could compare fuel efficiency on a specific lane from Kansas City to Chicago, while another possibility would be to compare the skills of drivers from different schools. Angel says PeopleNet is planning benchmarking tools for its Safety Analytics dashboard for fleets to compare performance to peers with similar operational profiles. Transportation companies that use a TMS platform from TMW Systems are able to share data anonymous- ly through an industry benchmarking survey. TMW is working to automate the capture of key operating metrics directly from the databases of participating customers. On the maintenance side, fleets can see the cost per mile of tractors and trailers by manufacturer, make, model and year. On the operational side, fleets can look at the rate per mile between ZIP code combinations, average dwell time on a lane, a revenue-per-hour calculation, distribu- tion of operating ratios and more. Any TMW customer can access results through a web portal. As more data is added, more metrics will become available for use in market intelligence, says Nick Orlando, director of business intelligence for TMW Systems. Now that big data has arrived, the evolution toward higher levels of predictive and prescriptive analysis con- tinues, giving users at all company levels greater insights and direction to achieve results. Clayton, Ala.-based flatbed carrier Boyd Bros. developed a data warehouse to analyze its four operating companies with a combined 1,100 trucks from a single platform. PeopleNet's Safety Analytics dashboard, an option in its Video Intelligence application, encompasses information on violations and identifies drivers by degree of risk.