Report shows progress made with bigger firms are drawing away
Telematics uptake is growing steadily in Australian truck fleets, the latest ACA Research report on the subject reveals.
A year after the market research and strategy firm’s last examination of the technology, it notes the fleet telematics growth of 5 per cent for 2014 over 2013 and predicts this to rise to 6 per cent this year.
However, hopes for developments in affordability to translate into smaller firms taking up the technology remain forlorn.
The report “reveals the stark difference in adoption rates depending on the size and operational footprint of truck fleets with the largest fleets in the country most likely to use telematics”, ACA states.
“More than three quarters (76 per cent) of companies with fleets of more than 25 trucks use telematics compared to half (49 per cent) of those with between six and 25 trucks, while the rate of adoption among the smallest fleets is even lower.
“The most intensively used fleets are also more likely to deploy telematics.
“The adoption rate is highest (65 per cent) among fleets travelling more than a million kilometres a year and is also more common among fleets travelling interstate rather than those operating on a more local basis.”
Of the telematics technology providers fleets used, seven brands have a 65 per cent share of the market, with the rest covered by 20 suppliers each with less than 2 per cent share.
The only truckmaker (OEM) in that seven is Volvo at 6 per cent, a proportion it shares with TomTom and IVMS but more than Ctrack at 5 per cent and MiX Telematics at 4 per cent, while Navman and MTData lead the field at 26 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.
“As more OEMs build telematics as standard into new vehicles and the number of technology players create new and more useful software applications, the value of the data the technology can collect will in turn become more valuable,” ACA Research says.
“This value will come from the more sophisticated way data can be mined and analysed enabling operators to optimise their use of vehicles and other assets and so improve productivity and safety.”
The challenge for mixed fleets that own trucks across several brands is how to integrate the data at the back end across multiple telematics providers, it adds.