Role of Mobile Technology in Transforming the Fleet Management

BANGALORE, India - March 9, 2017 - PRLog -- Mobile Technology has become an inevitable part of the human society. Today, we live and breathe with various advanced mobile applications in our day-to-day life for even the simplest form of work. According to Frost & Sullivan estimates, there will be 80 billion connected devices by 2020 and by 2018, 6.2 billion mobile phone users are estimated worldwide. The emergence of mobile technology has drastically changed the way businesses work. Moreover, People plan & live their lives using mobile devices with an expectation of their work environment to be equally viable and efficient. As a choice of people, the modern commuting trends have also led to the influence of mobile technology in the transportation, especially in taxi industry and corporate transport.

How mobile technology is transforming the taxi business?

The taxi market in India is highly fragmented and unorganised. Over the years, people have had difficulty in booking cabs by anxiously calling various cab agencies one by one for a cab during peak hours. The wait time for a cab with no proper information of the estimated time of arrival and various other uncertainties like driver behaviour, pricing, improper billing etc., have added to the increased concerns of a customer. Moreover, Drivers often cheated customers by taking the longest route so as to increase their revenue with few extra kilometres.

The recent emergence of Cab Aggregator concept has shaken the entire taxi market and has provided a comprehensive solution to an underlying problem that was unnoticed for many years now. Mobile apps developed for cab aggregation business is one of the best examples that can be quoted for disruptive innovation using Mobile Technology, which is clearly a result of technological progress, making the transportation within the city limits more affordable and hassle-free for the people opting the service. With the increased use of smartphones and high-speed internet in India, it has made it easier for public to adapt to the latest technology. Even, the Drivers accepted to this change and are getting trained on how to use the mobile apps so as to make their jobs easier and increase revenue.

Role of mobile technology in managing the corporate transport:

In this perspective, Corporate Transport Management using mobile technology is also increasingly becoming a hot topic for discussion. Fleet management is a difficile job for those companies that use vehicles for not only their employees' transportation but also for managing various other transport needs in a single go. In this case, Fleet Managers would often require ease of use of multiple resources to efficiently manage their company vehicles. They would also need to be alert at all times in order to schedule trips without any hassle.

Formally, to handle all those transport operations, most of the fleet managers would install the conventional GPS hardware systems in every vehicle to track them real-time so as to know the status of these fleet vehicles through a web application. This approach of fleet management is highly expensive as the companies would invest a huge amount of money in procuring the GPS tracking systems for all their vehicles. It also limits the fleet managers from handling the transport activities when they are on the field or away from the computer.

At present, Mobile Technology is practically transforming the system of managing various fleet operations. Smartphones nowadays come with an in-built GPS, which is used by businesses to track their fleet vehicles.  This essentially means that when a company provides mobile phones to its drivers, it not only helps in communicating with their personnel on field, but also provides an opportunity to use GPS hardware for tracking its vehicles.

Advantages of using mobile apps for fleet management:

On the other hand, the mobile apps developed for fleet management/vehicle tracking are absolutely a boon to those fleet managers who do not have ready access to a computer for keeping track of their fleet and driver behaviour. All that you need is just a mobile app to download, instead of using expensive Web applications or Desktop apps.  As per the statistics provided by Forbes, the mobile app downloads are expected to increase to almost 270 billion by 2017 from 179 billion in 2014. These figures mainly exhibit the growth of mobile technology over the years.

A fleet management software app on your smartphone with the use of internet, can keep you on top of everything that's on the road or in the field, no matter where you are. Hence, using mobile technology in fleet management is very affordable for any company and also it offers the benefit of flexibility for fleet managers to handle the transport operations anytime, anywhere.

At the same time, fleet management apps are helping corporates in Reducing the transportation costs (optimizing the number of trips, increasing vehicle efficiency etc), Enhancing the transparency in overall transport operations (avoiding dry kilometers, maintaining e-trip sheets etc) and Ensuring safety of employees (Panic buttons, Safe home reach feature etc). This essentially brings an organised approach in managing the fleet vehicles of a corporate.

We at Sun Telematics provide mobile apps for fleet management under a transport technology platform called 'DRIVE', which gives instant access to vehicle tracking data and provides added visibility & control over fleet operations when the fleet managers are away from the desk and on the move. DRIVE works as a complete solution package that connects all the parties involved in transport operations. Our DRIVE mobile apps enable exchange of information in real-time to take quick decisions on day-to-day transport activities. This essentially helps the companies to boost their productivity and reduce overheads in Corporate Transportation.

For more information about fleet management apps, kindly write us on info@suntelematics.com or visit our website http://www.suntelematics.com