This story first appeared in the May issue of DieselTalk – CLICK HERE to download the magazine FREE
Row upon row of ones and zeroes are meaningless to most of us – but to EROAD boffins they can be the difference between their clients’ losing money and making money. The latter, of course, makes a business a whole lot more enjoyable for all concerned.
EROAD head of engineering Jarred Clayton has been on board with the transport intelligence specialist since the “very early days,” starting as a consultant before joining the dedicated team full-time.
During that time, Clayton has seen a lot of things come and go – and if you consider just how far your PC has come in the last decade, or your mobile phone, you can imagine just how far the technology and processing power that makes up transport systems has come.
Gone are the days of clunky GPS tracking – the suite of products on offer from EROAD in 2016, make early systems look positively archaic.
With the complexity and abilities of modern systems, getting every last possible use out of the recorded data isn’t easy. It’s like trying to use every single feature in Microsoft Word – close to impossible.
That’s where the experts at EROAD come in – and identify the exact products to suit customers’ needs most closely, and then refine the information that their particular solution is capturing, and using it to the biggest possible advantage.
“I think the biggest thing that’s changed is that people are using that data to drive their businesses forward,” says Clayton. “They’re looking at how to drive more productivity across their entire fleet.
“What we also see more of is is the consolidation of fleets and syndicates in the marketplace…. that’s probably driving some more of that behaviour, as the fleets get bigger and more sophisticated..the insights from this data can be invaluable.”
Those endless rows of the binary code within the programming are also addressing the driver crisis that’s facing the transport industry.
“The shortage of drivers out there is something that’s been getting much worse,” he says. “So making sure that you’re using your drivers as efficiently as possible is incredibly important – as is looking after them as well as you possibly can.”
EROAD’s huge number of clients – with more than 35,000 units installed and growing faster than Auckland’s traffic problems results in a huge amount of vehicle data. EROAD provides aggregated and anonymised data sets to its agency partners, which is used to statistically model, analyse and evaluate real-time traffic flows, driving patterns and infrastructure usage.
With the huge volume of information that’s gathered, security and stability are a big job – everything is hosted on Amazon web servers, considered one of the very best in the business.
The vast server network means EROAD is capable of meeting any customer needs with ease, and the data is always incredibly well-protected.
With a background that started at the heaviest end of the transport industry, companies often end up using the data that’s helped improve the bottom line throughout the whole fleet.
“We’re always really strong in the heavy duty space,” says Clayton.
“Now with the new health and safety laws coming in, we’re going into that 4-12 tonne medium duty space a lot more, and also into the light duty space,” he says.
“Data, as they say, is currency these days – but if you can’t figure out the contents of your wallet, it’s pretty hard to spend it.
“The thing we’re most proud of is making full use of all of that data, then turning it around and giving it back to the customer with really natural insight,” says Clayton.
Clayton says the most accessible, and most usable tool in the EROAD toolbox is the Leaderboard.
“What’s interesting about that, is that where you can get things like, say, an over speed report from just about anyone, what you don’t get to see is how you’re doing,” he says.
“You could never see how you compared with the wider industry – now we’re providing that big data set, and you can see how you compare to the rest of the country.
“It’ll show you how you compare with the rest. Sure, you might have some issues with over speed, but you may be in the top 10% – while you’ve got a little bit of work to do, but you’re reasonably comfortable.”
Simplicity is key to making the data available as usable as it can be, he says.
“We certainly strive to make it as easy as possible to get the best usage possible out of the data. One company that came on board with us reduced their speeding by 75%, pretty quickly, by using our tools,” says Clayton.
“You can achieve a lot with our systems without it being particularly difficult – sure, there’s a whole lot of data there, but we work hard to make sure that the best possible insights are available in the simplest possible way,” he concludes.
