The number of UK businesses which are using telematics vehicle tracking technology in 2016 has almost doubled since last year, according to the findings a report released by RAC Telematics.
The RAC Telematics Report 2016 found almost two thirds (65%) of all businesses surveyed now use telematics devices in their vehicles (including black box and smartphone apps) compared to 38% in 2015.
Businesses which said they use telematics cited benefits such as lower fuel costs (55%), fewer accidents (43%) and a reduction in maintenance costs (31%) among the top reasons for introducing telematics to their fleets.
RAC Telematics MD, Nick Walker, said: “We see that the world has moved on from a slight fear about telematics, the old ‘Big Brother’ image that is well behind us now, as people are seeing the benefits, and looking at how they can bring those benefits into their own fleets.
“One of the very clear factors that we are seeing from the report, and from what we’re hearing from customers, is that telematics is now being associated with cost reduction, cost benefits, more insight and duty of care, than it is about pure tracking and the older benefits of telematics.
“People are looking now for things like vehicle condition monitoring and vehicle diagnostics. When vehicles have faults fleet managers want to know so they can anticipate and plan downtime, so vehicle health is a real key part of the future of telematics, and that is really nicely aligned to what we’re doing at the RAC.”
