According to ABI Research, in response to the emergence and rapid growth of mobile and cloud-based technology, commercial fleets no longer need to fit expensive hardware on their new trucks.
The “availability of consumer mobile devices with increasingly sophisticated capabilities means that smaller fleets are embracing commercial telematics,” a new report from the research and analytics giant reads.
Most fleet operators are already using smartphones as service access devices to monitor their fleets remotely. Now commercial telematics service providers are increasingly adapting their core applications including track & trace/route planning, driver behavior and fuel management solutions to run on consumer-grade smartphone and tablet devices.
“With GPS and accelerometer functionality, plus the power and flexibility of a sophisticated computer, smartphones and tablets are already important platforms for telematics applications,” says Gareth Owen, a principal analyst at ABI. “As sensors continue to develop, and new technologies such as voice and gesture recognition improve further, smartphone and tablet-based applications will become even more compelling for fleet telematics.”
The report confirms that leading commercial telematics providers are slowly but surely becoming device agnostic and are making their solutions available on consumer-grade smartphone and tablet devices as well as the typical ruggedized, customized mobile and tablet PC devices.
