A large number of IT companies and BPOs need to deal with employee transportation daily. Transporting employees to office and back home has become very difficult as destinations are spread across a big city. While rising costs has become a major concern, efficient and effective transportation system remains a far-fetched goal.
Telematics that has revolutionized the commercial transportation sector is now finding relevance in employee transportation. There is much demand for this technology as it looks to revolutionize the transportation sector, a notion corroborated by a Transparency Market Research report that pegs the Global Telematics market at $ 75.79 billion by 2025 from $ 10.15 billion (2016).
As telematics finds its way into employee transportation, let’s understand the ways in which it will revolutionize the segment:
Combining with Mobility:
The world is going mobile and it is not unusual to say that mobile has become integral part of the daily life – be it professional or personal. The latest developments in telematics technology allow for integration with mobile and enterprises stand to gain from this combination. With telematics and mobility enterprises can now provide a seamless, smooth, and comfortable transportation experience to their employees. In fact, this deadly combination of mobile and telematics helps create a comprehensive and quality – Transportation Management Platform to address all the transportation needs of an enterprise including employee transportation.
Automated Routing and Scheduling:
Telematics technology helps enterprises plan and automate the routing patterns. Not just that, it helps in changing routing patterns based on road circumstances and traffic situations. A classic example that we often witness today, especially in major cities, is effectiveness of telematics technology during road renovation or flyover construction – it provides optimal route options. Scheduling of trips that include start, pick-up, and drop times can be managed by telematics technology.
With the adoption of mobility, transport managers can now send automated alerts to employees at different times so that pick-up and drop schedules along with the trip timings are optimized. The combination of automated routing and scheduling also helps improve seat utilization. This helps enterprises run a lean and more efficient employee transportation service.
Effective and Efficient Trips:
Enterprises in most cases outsource the employee transportation to cab companies and pay them based on their billing allowing cab companies to be in complete control of the trips and the billing. In cases where the billing isn’t fairly done enterprises tend to lose out on costs and also time. Telematics helps track, trace, and provide greater visibility on the position of the cab and thus helps transport managers monitor the progress of the trip(s) and have better control. Telematics also helps track vehicle behavior and status as it delivers information on aspects such as acceleration, revving, start, and stop timings very accurately.
By virtue of being connected to the Engine Control Unit (ECU), telematics devices provide accurate information on the Speed, Distance travelled, Braking, Route taken, Stoppage Time, and Status of the vehicle. All of this information is delivered directly to the server for managers to access the reports. This allows for enterprises to have in place effective and efficient trips which result in numerous benefits.
Monitor Driver Behavior:
Drivers are undoubtedly the most important link in the employee transportation value chain. Good drivers make for good and safe trips. Telematics technology plays a pivotal role in helping drivers do their jobs even better. It helps monitor driver behavior and driving patterns and assists drivers by alerting them on bad driving habits and in that process, enhances the driver capabilities. The technology also helps drivers stay ahead of the curve as far as traffic congestion and routing are concerned and as a result, facilitate a stress-free driving. Enterprise could also use the driver score and optimize insurance cost especially for the owned vehicles.
Employee details and Safety:
Arguably, the most important aspect of the employee transportation is employee safety. Telematics helps to track employees through their IDs from the moment they log-in to the cab to the time they are dropped home safe. It allows for employees to stay connected to the main server, and therefore to the transportation team at office premises, constantly. This provides additional cover to employee safety and security procedures in place. By virtue of the constant connect with employees in real-time, enterprises are able to breathe a sigh of relief and cut down on a lot of concerns.
Internet Sharing: Telematics could be used to provide high speed secure internet connectivity inside the cab. This can potentially improve employee productivity, instead of spending long unproductive time commuting to office. This could become beneficial for both the employee as well as the enterprise.
Parental Applications: It is not uncommon for a parent to worry about kid’s safety, taking away focus on the job at hand. Telematics features could be used to ensure kids safely, reduce speeding incidents, idling time. It can give employees the confidence to know where and when their child will arrive. In case of any safety violations safely alarm could be triggered to the users.
As far as employee transportation is concerned, there are two most critical issues – first is employee safety and second, optimization of employee transportation so enterprises can save on costs. Next-gen Telematics come with a promise to enhance and revolutionize the employee transportation system and help enterprises mitigate their challenges and effectively reduce transportation management costs.
Along with the aforementioned benefits telematics also helps enterprises automate transportation management system, prevent unauthorized vehicle access and contribute to environmental safety by helping reduce carbon emissions. Adoption of next-gen telematics technology has a huge number of benefits for enterprises looking to enhance and revolutionize their employee transportation.
Author: Debashis Panigrahi, Specialist (Telematics and V2X), Automotive Portfolio
