This is according to Matthew Hague, Microlise Executive Director – Product Strategy, who this week addressed an audience at one of the UK’s premier conferences for fleet managers and operators.
“We have spent a phenomenal amount time and resource over the last two years, running a number of successful projects involving government funding,” said Hague. “Big Data is a bit of a buzz word, but it is one of those things that will really drive our product offering forward in the coming months and years.”
Hague said that Microlise captures well over seven billion miles worth of road data each year, but working with such large data sets and harnessing its power presents a challenge. “How to glean useful information from an ocean of data is a challenge, but new technologies and techniques are enabling us to scale up and process large data sets in a quick and agile way.”
In 2014, with partner the University of Nottingham, Microlise was awarded funding of £359,000 from the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board (now Innovate UK). The objective of the “Value Enhancement for Data from Assets & Transactions” (VEDAT) project was to achieve customer and market value from the high volumes of complex data generated in real-time through telematics technology.
“We completed our work with the University of Nottingham last year and will soon be in a position to productise new and innovative tools and solutions that will create new value propositions within the transport and logistics sector,” added Hague.
According to Microlise, the first uses of this new big data resource will be predictive analytics for vehicle health, improving hazard awareness and briefing drivers. Though Hague said there are many use cases which will be developed in due course including the ability to benchmark performance against the industry or sector a fleet operates in.
“By using the anonymous data we capture every day then overlaying the government’s annualised accident black spot data, and crime data, we can very accurately predict risk while taking time of day and weather conditions into account,” said Hague.
According to Hague, it will soon be possible to rank routes according to risk, and even to alert drivers to specific risks along their route as they approach them ensuring they are prepared.
The presentation by Microlise’s chief product architect was part of the conference’s technology stream, where he was speaking in the session alongside manufacturer Renault Trucks in a debate covering the need for data to be less biased towards engineering.
Delegates also discussed the masses of new data that will be generated by ADAS level 4 and 5 technologies.
For more information about Microlise fleet management solutions, which help vehicle operators to reduce the cost and environmental impact of their fleet operations, visit www.microlise.com/products.
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ABOUT MICROLISE
Microlise telematics and proof of delivery solutions help its customers reduce costs and the environmental impact of their fleet operations. This is achieved by maximising vehicle utilisation, increasing operational efficiency and improving economy and safety; whilst helping to deliver the very best customer experience by providing real-time visibility of the fleet against schedule.
A privately owned business based in Nottingham in the UK, Microlise invests significantly in research and development annually to ensure its solutions continue to be underpinned by market-leading technology. For more information, please visit https://www.microlise.com/ or follow us on Twitter – @microlise.
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