Telematics

Key applications

While the term telematics is broad, its modern usage is dominated by a number of key applications in the vehicular context, as well as for personal and asset tracking.

Fleet management

The largest commercial application of telematics is in fleet management, often utilizing a comprehensive Fleet telematics system. Telematics devices are used as the primary data collection tool for fleet digitalization, enabling businesses to manage their fleets of cars, trucks, and other assets. In volatile economic climates, telematics is a key tool for reducing high operational costs, especially for fuel. Key functions include:

• Vehicle and asset tracking: Monitoring the live location of vehicles, trailers, and containers to optimize routes, shorten vehicle journeys, and improve dispatching using Track and trace capabilities.
• Driver behavior monitoring: Analyzing data on speed, braking, acceleration, and engine idling time, often used for Driver scoring. Identifying and coaching drivers on fuel-wasting behaviors like aggressive acceleration or excessive idling is a primary method for reducing fuel costs.
• Remote diagnostics and maintenance: Using data from the vehicle's CAN bus or OBD port to monitor vehicle health. Proper vehicle maintenance has a significant impact on fuel consumption, and telematics helps enable predictive maintenance. Specialized Fuel-management systems also help in monitoring fuel consumption and preventing fuel theft.

Personal and asset tracking

Beyond fleet vehicles, telematics is widely used in the form of small, portable, battery-powered trackers for a diverse range of personal and asset monitoring applications. These devices provide location data for:

• Vulnerable persons: Monitoring the location of children, the elderly, or individuals with medical conditions. Many devices include an SOS button for emergencies.
• Lone worker safety: Protecting employees in remote or hazardous environments by providing location tracking and panic alerts.
• Pet tracking: Attaching a device to a pet's collar to locate them if they go missing.
• High-value asset tracking: Monitoring valuable personal items like luggage, sports equipment, or camera bags, as well as commercial assets like tools and small equipment.
• Recreational vehicles: Tracking assets like boats, motorcycles, and RVs for security and to monitor their usage.

Video telematics

Video telematics is an evolution of traditional telematics that integrates cameras, such as a Dashcam, with telematics data. This adds visual context to events, which is used for proactive driver coaching using AI, accident reconstruction, and insurance claim validation.

Usage-based insurance (UBI)

Usage-based insurance is a model where auto insurance premiums are directly correlated with real-time driving behavior. A telematics device in the vehicle monitors metrics such as distance driven, speed, and braking force. Safer drivers are often rewarded with lower premiums.

Car sharing and mobility services

Telematics technology is integral to modern carsharing and ride-hailing services like Uber, Lyft, and Zipcar. The onboard device allows the company to track the vehicle's location, monitor its usage, and manage remote locking and unlocking for users, who typically access the service via a smartphone app.

Public transport

Telematics is used in modernizing public transport. It enables real-time vehicle tracking, which provides passengers with accurate arrival and departure times through mobile apps and station displays. It also helps transport authorities with route optimization, schedule adherence monitoring, and efficient dispatching.

Emergency and safety services

Telematics systems facilitate safety communications.

• eCall: In the European Union, eCall is a mandated in-vehicle system that automatically contacts emergency services in the event of a serious accident, transmitting the vehicle's location.
• Stolen vehicle recovery (SVR): Telematics devices are used to track and recover stolen vehicles. Systems like LoJack are a well-known example of this application.
• Vehicle-to-everything (V2X): An emerging technology where vehicles communicate with each other and with road infrastructure (e.g., traffic lights) to improve safety and prevent collisions.

Consumer connected services

Vehicle manufacturers increasingly use embedded telematics to offer connected services to consumers, often through a smartphone app. These services include automotive navigation systems, sometimes called a Journey planner, remote vehicle control (e.g., remote start or locking doors), vehicle health reports, and concierge services.

Telematics standards

The Association of Equipment Management Professionals (AEMP) developed the industry's first telematics standard.

In 2008, AEMP brought together the major construction equipment manufacturers and telematics providers in the heavy equipment industry to discuss the development of the industry's first telematics standard. Following agreement from Caterpillar, Volvo CE, Komatsu, and John Deere Construction & Forestry to support such a standard, the AEMP formed a standards development subcommittee chaired by Pat Crail CEM to develop the standard. This committee consisted of developers provided by the Caterpillar/Trimble joint venture known as Virtual Site Solutions, Volvo CE, and John Deere. This group worked from February 2009 through September 2010 to develop the industry's first standard for the delivery of telematics data.

The result, the AEMP Telematics Data Standard V1.1, was released in 2010 and officially went live on October 1, 2010. As of November 1, 2010, Caterpillar, Volvo CE, John Deere Construction & Forestry, OEM Data Delivery, and Navman Wireless are able to support customers with delivery of basic telematics data in a standard xml format. Komatsu, Topcon, and others are finishing beta testing and have indicated their ability to support customers in the near future.

The AEMP's telematics data standard was developed to allow end users to integrate key telematics data (operating hours, location, fuel consumed, and odometer reading where applicable) into their existing fleet management reporting systems. As such, the standard was primarily intended to facilitate importation of these data elements into enterprise software systems such as those used by many medium-to-large construction contractors. Prior to the standard, end users had few options for integrating this data into their reporting systems in a mixed-fleet environment consisting of multiple brands of machines and a mix of telematics-equipped machines and legacy machines (those without telematics devices where operating data is still reported manually via pen and paper). One option available to machine owners was to visit multiple websites to manually retrieve data from each manufacturer's telematics interface and then manually enter it into their fleet management program's database. This option was cumbersome and labor-intensive.

A second option was for the end user to develop an API (Application Programming Interface), or program, to integrate the data from each telematics provider into their database. This option was quite costly as each telematics provider had different procedures for accessing and retrieving the data and the data format varied from provider to provider. This option automated the process, but because each provider required a unique, custom API to retrieve and parse the data, it was an expensive option. In addition, another API had to be developed any time another brand of machine or telematics device was added to the fleet.

A third option for mixed-fleet integration was to replace the various factory-installed telematics devices with devices from a third party telematics provider. Although this solved the problem of having multiple data providers requiring unique integration methods, this was by far the most expensive option. In addition to the expense, many third-party devices available for construction equipment are unable to access data directly from the machine's electronic control modules (ECMs), or computers, and are more limited than the device installed by the OEM (Cat, Volvo, Deere, Komatsu, etc.) in the data they are able to provide. In some cases, these devices are limited to location and engine runtime, although they are increasingly able to accommodate a number of add-on sensors to provide additional data.

The AEMP Telematics Data Standard provides a fourth option. By concentrating on the key data elements that drive the majority of fleet management reports (hours, miles, location, fuel consumption), making those data elements available in a standardized xml format, and standardizing the means by which the document is retrieved, the standard enables the end user to use one API to retrieve data from any participating telematics provider (as opposed to the unique API for each provider that was required previously), greatly reducing integration development costs.

The current draft version of the AEMP Telematics Data Standard is now called the AEM/AEMP Draft Telematics API Standard, which expands the original standard Version 1.2 to include 19 data fields (with fault code capability). This new draft standard is a collaborative effort of AEMP and the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM), working on behalf of their members and the industry. This Draft API replaces the current version 1.2 and does not currently cover some types of equipment, e.g., agriculture equipment, cranes, mobile elevating work platforms, air compressors, and other niche products.

In addition to the new data fields, the AEM/AEMP Draft Telematics API Standard changes how data is accessed in an effort to make it easier to consume and integrate with other systems and processes. It includes standardized communication protocols for the ability to transfer telematics information in mixed-equipment fleets to end user business enterprise systems, enabling the end user to employ their own business software to collect and then analyze asset data from mixed-equipment fleets without the need to work across multiple telematics provider applications.

To achieve a globally recognized standard for conformity worldwide, the AEM/AEMP Draft Telematics API Standard will be submitted for acceptance by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Final language is dependent upon completion of the ISO acceptance process.

Telematics education

Engineering degree programs

• Universidad Icesi in Colombia created the first Telematics Engineering program in the country in 1998. The program requires 10 semesters of full-time studies, after which students receive the professional title of Ingeniero(a) Telemático(a).
• Federico Santa María Technical University (UTFSM) in Chile has a Telematics Engineering program which is a six-year full-time program of study (12 academic semesters). The final degree in Telematics Engineering has the title of Ingeniería Civil Telemática (with the suffix of Civil).
• Pontifical Catholic University Mother and Teacher (PUCMM) in the Dominican Republic has a Telematics Engineering program which is a four-year full-time program of study (12 academic four-month periods). The final degree in Telematics Engineering has the title of Ingeniería Telemática.

University bachelor programs

• Harokopio University of Athens has a four-year full-time program of study. The department goal is the development and advancement of computer science, primarily in the field of network information systems and relative e-services. For this purpose, attention is focused in the fields of telematics (teleinformatics) which are relative to network and internet technologies, e-business, e-government, e-health, advanced transport telematics, etc.
• TH Wildau in Wildau, Germany has provided a three-year full-time telematics Bachelor study program since 1999.
• TU Graz in Graz, Austria offers a three-year Bachelor in telematics (now called "Information and Computer Engineering").
• Singapore Institute of Technology offers a three-year Bachelor in Telematics.
• National Open and Distance Learning University of Mexico* (UNADM) offers a four-year degree in Telematics delivered online.

University masters programs

Several universities provide two-year Telematics Master of Science programs:

• Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway
• University of Twente (UT), The Netherlands
• University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M), Spain
• Harokopio University Athens
• TH Wildau in Wildau, Germany
• TU Graz in Graz, Austria (now called "Information and Computer Engineering")

European Automotive Digital Innovation Studio (EADIS)

In 2007, a project entitled the European Automotive Digital Innovation Studio (EADIS) was awarded 400,000 Euros from the European Commission under its Leonardo da Vinci program. EADIS used a virtual work environment called the Digital Innovation Studio to train and develop professional designers in the automotive industry in the impact and application of vehicle telematics so they could integrate new technologies into future products within the automotive industry. Funding ended in 2013.