In the early days of telematics technology development, people worried that the technology was mainly used by over-zealous team managers or insurance companies. On the contrary, such fears have disappeared. This technology, which can be used to remotely monitor vehicle performance and driver performance in real time, has been accepted by the logistics industry.

Its widespread use will provide alternatives for a different future. In this future scenario, the highway runs like a railroad, and users need to bid at the C price to use the A road in the B period.

Alan McKinnon, a professor of logistics at the University of Logistics and Business Technology (KLU) in Hamburg, said: “The trucking company says it is a science fiction novel. But the traffic growth rate exceeds our ability to build road space. Information services will be the key to avoid such extreme responses."

This outcome will depend to some extent on the use of the technology, such as promoting energy-saving and environmentally friendly driving. However, it will be more important to use in-vehicle information services to solve the problem of underutilization of assets. This problem is one of the greatest challenges faced by the highly fragmented road freight industry.

Helping to match the online exchange of goods and cargo space has been around for some time. However, on-board information services can significantly increase the usefulness of these tools because each truck can report cargo information in real time. With the development of the Internet of Things, the goods themselves may participate in the dialogue.

McKinnon said: "There is tremendous potential in this area." He believes that in the European trucking industry alone, the cost of underutilized assets can be as high as hundreds of billions of euros per year.

The goal of the EU Logistics Innovation Alliance is to establish an efficient and interconnected logistics system by 2050. The system will operate like a "physical Internet," and goods will be transported according to the space available for shared resources, just as e-mail passes through a server from a continent. Send it to another continent.

The on-board information service will play an important role in providing various information for the participating links in the transportation chain, including container space, arrival time, driver's rest schedule or container temperature. This technology may also support new, more efficient vehicle driving methods, such as "platooning," which minimizes the distance between cars and vehicles, thereby saving road space and fuel.

Frederic Bruneteau, Ptolemus, a consulting firm specializing in mobility and communications, said that on the one hand, such possibilities have created tremendous opportunities for in-vehicle information service providers. The largest companies include: Canadian AirIQ Group, MiX Telematics, headquartered in South Africa, TomTom Telematics, headquartered in the Netherlands, and Fleetmatics, owned by Verizon, USA. On the other hand, the time to subvert the industry is ripe.

One strategy to add value is to expand the scope of services. Fleet managers are increasingly looking to obtain more comprehensive data and will select in-vehicle information service tools that will provide them with meaningful information, including not only location or vehicle performance, but also fuel levels, security checks, and road tolls ahead. .