“What’s new in telematics?” is a question you could ask at least once a week and receive a different answer. This month we’re bringing updates from Teletrac Navman. The company recently released its AI-driven platform, TN360. This platform takes data from your fleet and turns it into insights to help make necessary but often tough business decisions. Here to tell us more is Teletrac Navman’s head of product management and UX, Sid Nair.
MWS: WHAT IS YOUR ROLE WITH TELETRAC NAVMAN, AND HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN THERE?
NAIR: I lead Teletrac Navman’s product management and UX teams. I have been here for over six years. Prior to this I worked at multiple other transport tech organizations.
MWS: WHAT MAKES TELETRAC NAVMAN STAND OUT AMONG OTHER TELEMATICS SYSTEMS ON THE MARKET?
NAIR: We put our customers first. We offer the best end-to-end experience, focusing both on simplicity and capabilities. We have over 30 years of experience innovating in this field globally. Our richness in ideas, culture, and diversity shows in our telematics products through its features set.
MWS: WHAT IS NEW FOR TELETRAC NAVMAN THIS YEAR?
NAIR: We announced TN360, our AI-driven platform that converts data into insights that leads to better actions. Through our experience, we saw customers struggling to understand data. We simplified this with a powerful natural language search capability. We also focused on real-time data from the vehicle, putting you (the back office) in the driver’s seat. This gives fleet managers and decision-makers the best situational awareness to make good decisions for fleet operations.
The data pulled from fleet vehicles using TN360 is extensive; but we made it manageable and simple to retrieve and view.
MWS: WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR FLEET MANAGERS TO HAVE ALL THIS DATA FROM THE TN360 AVAILABLE TO THEM?
NAIR: Fleets are always optimizing three things: 1) operational costs and revenue; 2) compliance and safety; and 3) their people. Data from TN360 provides an unbiased view into how they manage their fleets. Additionally, insights from data give them the ability to effectively manage their fleet and problem-solve trouble spots when necessary. For example, the system can show a fleet manager their most efficient vehicles, safest drivers, average dwell times, trigger alerts based on events, and even go as far as to help make decisions on whether you should lease vehicles or buy them.
MWS: WHAT HAS BEEN THE RESPONSE FROM FLEET MANAGERS SO FAR?
NAIR: Fleet managers are loving it! They love that with TN360, “they don’t need a PhD to go through the data and make sense of it.” They get a real sense of what’s going on with their fleet and drivers. They also love the fact that we have mobile apps, so they are always connected no matter where they are.
MWS: WITH SO MANY TELEMATICS SYSTEMS OUT THERE, WHAT ARE TIPS TO HELP A FLEET MANAGER KNOW WHICH SYSTEM TO CHOOSE?
NAIR: Before choosing any technology including telematics, you should look at what problems you are trying to solve or what functions you are trying to optimize. Ultimately the technology is just a tool or an enabler. For telematics, we typically hear of three key things.
1. “I want real-time data, so I know where my drivers are at all times so that I can let my customer know.” TN360 provides this with our virtual drone view that gives you second-by-second data in real time.
2. “I want it to be easy to use and alert me when things go wrong.” TN360 provides this with real-time alerting capabilities. We can even include automated check calls and customized pop-up forms when a driver enters a geofence (e.g., to ensure they complete DVIR before driving the vehicle out of the yard).
3. “Tell me what I don’t know.” With our TN360 Insights platform, we provide you with search, analytics, and insights. With insights we look through data and detect anomalies. Our AI platform provides insights into what could have caused issues in your fleet. This takes a step above the traditional reporting and tells a manager what they don’t know.
MWS: ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS?
NAIR: We do all the things that you need to do—from messaging to maintenance and compliance to cameras, we have you covered. We also wanted to make it easy for you to be able to integrate and automate your day-to-day tasks. We have connected with IFTTT and Zapier, two integration platforms that take our data and connect to any other services that you use like Gmail or Salesforce. We make it really easy for you to use and have done an Alexa integration, so you can say “Alexa, open 360. Show me my status.” Alexa can then read back your open status, alerts, and messages.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Sid Nair is the head of project management and UX at Teletrac Navman. Find out more, visit www.teletracnavman.com.
