The Ministry of Transport will welcome welcome the establishment of a New Zealand telematics industry association.
This follows the formation of the Australia’s Telematics Industry Group (TIG), formed to represent Australian telematics service providers (TSPs).
Gavin Middleton, senior communications advisor at MoT tells DIESELtalk that: “Because of the potential gains to freight productivity from increased use of telematics, if an association is formed here, the ministry would welcome it, and want to work with it,”
The establishment of Australia’s Telematics Industry Group (TIG) was driven by Transport Certification Australia (TCA) to establish a national group to provide co-operation among stakeholders from regulatory departments, transport and logistics operators and the TSPs.
The TCA was established by Australian state governments to meet what they regarded as ever increasing challenges facing Australian transport.
Middleton was quick to point out, however, that launching such a group was entirely down to the industry and the MoT would not adopt the hands-on approach favoured by Australian regulators.
“Industry associations in New Zealand are generally set up by the organisations involved in that industry, rather than being established or led by government. This means that the Ministry of Transport is unlikely to initiate a Telematics Industry Group, such as in Australia.”
As a major exporter of GNSS telematics solutions, with a strong presence in Australia, New Zealand has earned an international reputation as being the industry pioneer – partially due to a compliance landscape that features distance-based road user charging.
As a result of complex regulation like RUC, however, New Zealand TSPs were the first to commercially launch successful services, says Helen Locatelli, M2M manager at Vodafone.
“The Northern hemisphere looks to New Zealand for live commercial services that are proven to work well in the field – this has helped to put New Zealand streets ahead of others, including Australia,” she comments.
Local TSPs have also called for an NZ industry group.
Dean Marris from International Telematics told DIESELtalk in May that with: “Adoption of telematics in NZ rising dramatically over the last year, an industry body would enable the industry to advance strategic industry contact between regulators and major stakeholders, such as fleet operators.”
In Australia, meanwhile, the inaugural meeting of the TIG’s consultative forum took place in Melbourne in early August.
“The TIG has attracted a strong level of interest from a diverse range of stakeholders, including manufacturers, TSPs and major telecommunications providers,” says Kate West, communications officer at TCA.
The TCA also says that participants in the inaugural meeting received an overview from the TCA around what it describes as a ‘national telematics framework’. On the agenda also were hardware issues, such as in-vehicle unit (IVU) specification. The TCA now seeks feedback from delegates by September 6.
Given, and perhaps because of, New Zealand’s leadership position in the sector, the formation of an NZ industry group now seems inevitable, to help maintain Kiwi technology edge – and provide a co-ordinated approach around the increasing use of telematics applications in the transport industry.
Footnote: The September print and PDF edition of DIESELtalk has a special report on New Zealand’s world-beating transport technology sector, and the cluster of innovative TSPs that are transforming how transport does business, both here and worldwide.
The industry report takes a look at how New Zealand got to be the world leader and the challenges faced in maintaining this market and technology leadership position.
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