GISCafe Voice Susan Smith
Susan Smith has worked as an editor and writer in the technology industry for over 16 years. As an editor she has been responsible for the launch of a number of technology trade publications, both in print and online. Currently, Susan is the Editor of GISCafe and AECCafe, as well as those sites’ newsletters and blogs. She writes on a number of topics, including but not limited to geospatial, architecture, engineering and construction. As many technologies evolve and occasionally merge, Susan finds herself uniquely situated to be able to cover diverse topics with facility. « Less Susan Smith
Susan Smith has worked as an editor and writer in the technology industry for over 16 years. As an editor she has been responsible for the launch of a number of technology trade publications, both in print and online. Currently, Susan is the Editor of GISCafe and AECCafe, as well as those sites’ … More » Kinesis Tracks Over 2 Billion Vehicle Tracked Miles with Online Monitoring SolutionApril 20th, 2018 by Susan Smith
Kinesis, the global vehicle tracking solution from Telematics at Radius Payment Solutions in Crewe, UK, recently recorded the milestone of over 2 billion vehicle tracked miles. Since launching in the UK three years ago, Kinesis has installed its state of the art tracking hardware in more than 50,000 vehicles across Europe, Southeast Asia and North America. Providing the latest technology to help manage transport and service vehicles, Kinesis provides real time, online monitoring of vehicle movements with a host of additional live operational data and intelligence. Through an easy-to-use dashboard or smartphone app, Kinesis offers driver performance and vehicle check reporting, messaging and real time alerts, as well as integration with fuel management and vehicle diagnostics. The company uses Google for mapping but a separate database for speed limits. “This is a major milestone for Kinesis,” commented Greville Coe, Group Managing Director – Telematics at Radius Payment Solutions, the company behind Kinesis. “From a standing start, just three years ago, Kinesis has become a global player in a highly competitive and potentially over supplied market. By offering a range of additional features and services, such as integrated fuel cards and driver and vehicle performance monitoring, we have elevated Kinesis way beyond traditional vehicle tracking, a major contributing factor to this success.” Adam Partington, Marketing manager, Kinesis Telematics replied to some questions from GISCafe Voice regarding the Kinesis global vehicle tracking system. GISCafe Voice: What datasets are employed for the tracking company Kinesis? Mapping is the primary dataset, but it will be linked to postal address, plus company asset and location data relating to points of delivery and service. It takes feeds of real-time traffic data and highways information such as highways works, restricted access and more. There’s also the Driver Performance element. We take speeding, harsh acceleration, braking and cornering data into account to create a driver score. GISCafe Voice: Will Kinesis enter the autonomous vehicle market? We have no immediate plans but given the innovative nature of our parent company (Radius Payment Solutions) we’re always looking to be at the forefront of the services that our customer is interested in. GISCafe Voice: What does Kinesis offer not found in competing solutions? Full integration with fuel management systems. It’s relatively new on the market and has therefore been designed from the ground up as a cloud-based solution. It’s very simple to use and implement. It’s also easier to customise than other systems with mobile apps for use by drivers and other mobile workers, so that makes it adaptable for different sectors and markets. That’s important in the service sector where there is a huge diversity of businesses. Kinesis provides real time access to reliable data tracking driver performance, productivity and progress. At a glance, users can access detailed information on every journey taken, including start and finishing times, mileage and route taken. Additional features include driver performance monitoring, vehicle health monitoring and real time location and event alerts. Kinesis is one of the few telematics solutions to provide fuel use insight with integrated fuel cards, offering accurate mpg (miles per gallon) monitoring for individual vehicles, drivers and journeys. GISCafe Voice: What special considerations, if any, are there about entering the U.S. market? Kinesis already has a US presence and has recently started installing vehicles, initially for fleet operators in the North East from the office in Boston. The US is seen is a primary area for expansion. GISCafe Voice: Do you need to change the solution for use in various countries? No, it’s a global solution delivered anywhere, anytime and offers multi-language capabilities. Kinesis is designed to be easy to use through standard web browsers and can be customised. It is therefore very adaptable and can be set up for local requirements such as country-specific roadworthiness compliance inspections and reporting. GISCafe Voice: Can you quantify efficiency, avoidance of accidents, cost, or time savings as a result of using Kinesis? It does vary according to the market and type of vehicles and operations – heavy goods vehicles cost more per mile so any improved utilisation and optimisation have greater financial benefits in that area. Tracking provides proof of mileage to prevent dishonest travel claims. However, there are lots of add-on benefits such as better driving, fewer accidents and improved customer service (accurate ETA data that can be sent automatically, for example). Customers report direct savings of between 5 and 10 percent – however that does not include the less tangible savings from fewer accidents, tighter mileage claims control, better customer service and traffic congestion avoidance. For some the cost savings are as high as 15-20 percent. GISCafe Voice: Is it used primarily by government agencies and large trucking firms, or others? Please explain. All types of commercial vehicle fleets, municipal vehicles, trucks, vans, cars and even boats! Being part of a fuel card company, telematics is a service many of those customers find of value. Kinesis is very affordable and that has led to demand amongst organisations that previously could not afford to track. GISCafe Voice: What kinds of costs are involved? Is the solution subscription based? We’re quite flexible. In terms of costs, we normally expect the plan to have paid for itself in savings within a couple of months but it does depend on the type of plan or contract a company wants to take. RelatedTags: data, geospatial, GIS, Google, Google Maps, imagery, Infrastructure, Kinesis, lbs, LiDAR, location, mapping, maps, mobile, navigation, remote sensing Categories: analytics, autonomous driving, Big Data, cloud, cloud network analytics, data, emergency response, field GIS, geospatial, GIS, Google Maps Engine, government, in car navigation, lidar, location based sensor fusion, location based services, location intelligence, mapping, mobile, sensors, transportation This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2018 at 9:49 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. |