Due to globalisation, liberalisation of markets, deregulation in the transport sector, and the increasing commitment to the just-in-time philosophy, competition between motor carriers and expectations on punctuality, reliability, flexibility, and transparency have increased significantly and will increase even more in the future. The rapid development of mobile communication and information technology allows the use of telematics to cope with those challenges and to increase the efficiency of commercial vehicle operations. This research project is concerned with fleet telematics applications which can be used by motor carriers to improve real-time management and planning.
Today’s commercial off-the-shelf fleet telematics systems can be used for information exchange between drivers and dispatchers, route guidance, and visualisation of vehicle positions on digital maps. They can give important information about the actual state of the transportation system which is essential for real-time management and planning of commercial vehicle operations. However, many management information systems currently used by motor carriers do not provide methods for processing information obtained from fleet telematics systems as, a couple of years ago, only very few commercial vehicles were equipped with telematics devices. Therefore, fleet telematics systems often cannot be easily integrated into the carrier’s information system and their deployment is of only limited benefit. This research identifies and classifies potentials of fleet telematics and shows how commercial off-the-shelf fleet telematics systems can be integrated into a typical legacy information system without telematics functionality. It is shown how fleet telematics can be used to support the communication between drivers and dispatchers, monitor transportation processes, determine actual data, compare actual data with planned data, and revise planned data in order to consider the actual state of the transportation system. A telematics-enabled information system is designed that alleviates a major obstacle for computer-based real-time decision support: the lack of timely and reliable information.