By Jeff Wells
Zonar Senior Vice President
The Trend to a Single Interface:
Fleet management solutions will bring everything together into one interface. Market demands will require solutions that enable an ad-hoc ability to tailor/customize reports to exactly what a company needs, even building it into their accounting software. What’s the cost per vehicle? Who has been driving? What they’ve been doing with the vehicles and how does that impact a company financially? It’s no longer a one-stop shop, but a multi-faceted approach to fleet management.
A Greater Efficiency Push:
Calendar-year 2017 will see a big push toward efficiency and reducing waste. Because of rapid changes in technology, companies will be able to streamline operations and see beyond what’s right in front of them. They can see what is underutilized, which trucks are being overused, etc. Everyone has to get lean. There is no longer much room in margins to overspend, and you’ll see companies really starting to try and save money and condense operations where possible.
A Greater Emphasis on Safety and Compliance:
On the flip side of efficiency is safety and compliance. Most of the mandates to date have not been super scrutinized and ELD will really make this a priority. Companies are looking to do a lot with their investment, not just address ELD. Solutions will begin to build on top of it, and how to prepare companies for what might come down the road. Drivers don’t always identify as drivers, they identify as trade workers, and as long as the technology doesn’t distract them from the job they need to do (in construction for example), it will make things easier and safer, while 4holding them more accountable.
The Emergence of Augmented Reality:
Outside of the driverless car, one of the things that will “change the game” is augmented reality (AR), which we may start to see as soon as 2017. Imagine a world where a driver arrives at a docking bay and holds up their tablet and their AR solution shows them which door to go to and what angle to reverse their truck. That’s the future, it’s like Pokemon Go for fleet management. There are still many tasks that computers/driverless cars are un- able to manage and AR will help make some of these easier on drivers.
The Emergence of Smart Cities:
Smart cities will start to become a reality and we’ll see technology that really helps drivers and companies do their jobs better vs. simply helping meet industry requirements. With new technology, different organizations across the city such as the DOT, Waste Management, Metro, etc. will have the power to communicate and share information to make jobs easier and more efficient. It’s less about an 18-wheeler communicating with an 18-wheeler and more about trucks communicating with a larger system and with organizations outside of their direct scope.
