The American Transportation Research Institute has released a new report on the use of telematics by truck fleets. The report identifies the telematics measures and functionalities that have the greatest importance to motor carriers for improving safety, operations and maintenance.

The research found that the metrics that have the most impact are not always the most widely used. Managing cost-per-mile, for example, received the highest Importance score in the operations category, yet was used by only 73 percent of respondents. The report’s Key Performance Indicator gap analysis provides fleets and telematics providers with a blueprint for focusing on KPIs that matter most.

For safety-related KPIs, the four most widely adopted metrics were critical events, speeding, risky driving behavior and hard braking.

The research was based on 111 motor carrier survey participants. Respondents indicated that carriers are well-versed in the use of basic telematics information in the areas of safety, operations and maintenance.

Safety. Carriers were generally adept at tracking safety compliance, compiling and tracking driver risk scores, and monitoring critical events via telematics. Additionally, coaching and proactive safety alerts were said to be well understood by motor carrier customers. Overall, carriers’ utilization of safety compliance practices, along with a program that rewarded measurable driver skills and improvements, were said to decrease risky driver behaviors across individual fleets.

Operations. Respondents indicated that most carriers were skilled at decreasing costs and improving efficiency through telematics. This was especially true regarding fuel efficiency and dwell time. Identifying and mitigating risky driving behaviors such as speeding, harsh-handling and hard braking using telematics improved both safety and fuel economy. Fuel waste in particular was consistently linked to safety as well.

Similarly, fleets were able to optimize HOS through telematics to improve available drive and on-duty time. Other KPIs mentioned included equipment and load utilization, minimization of deadhead miles and increased revenue per mile.

Maintenance. Respondents reported that fleets experienced success when integrating Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports into their telematics platforms, which proved to be a more streamlined process that resulted in improved maintenance and decreased equipment downtime. Predictive maintenance and fault code diagnostics were similarly mentioned as effective tools to schedule and track maintenance, and as a result, reduce breakdowns and increase uptime.

Other effective practices include root cause analyses, dynamic electrical system rating – which monitors battery voltage in real-time – and, integrated work order automation to automatically convert predictive alerts into work orders. Harsh-handling metrics were also incorporated into predictive maintenance tools to further track equipment wear and tear.