The rise of our digital age has ushered in a great many changes to how we go about various aspects of our daily work and home lives.  

Advanced technology is also proving to offer a range of useful tools to fleet managers. At a time in which remote working has risen in popularity, developers have committed to producing platforms that encourage efficient working practices and closer team collaboration. Platforms that take a smart approach to fleet analysis, tracking each vehicle and identifying changes in road conditions such as unexpected obstacles and traffic congestion are allowing managers to swiftly deploy specialized tech and teams as soon as the need arises. These dynamic management tools are known as advanced mobility platforms for field services and mobile workforce operations. 

It can be easy for field service managers to become set in methods that have worked for them for many years, so why is it in their best interest to incorporate advanced mobility platforms into their practices?

We’re going to look at 3 big ways in which advanced management tools can make a valuable difference, and give field service operations a competitive edge. 

Smart Scheduling & Dispatch

Perhaps one of the ways in which advanced mobility platforms can offer the most value to fleets is scheduling and dispatch. The best fleet managers are organizational ninjas, experts in multitasking and keeping on top of a variety of unexpected obstacles that get thrown in the path of an efficient dispatching day. Likewise, the best mobile workforce management software is designed as a support tool that works intuitively and in conjunction with fleet managers’ expertise to help organize data and make intelligent decisions, often in real-time.

Advanced mobility platforms give a clear, visual overview of the activities of the mobile workforce at any given time. From the basics of mapping out daily shift rosters to utilizing data and optimizing routes in advance of dispatch. This gives managers the opportunity to work side by side with advanced machine learning in order to have the best tools to organize resources effectively. These platforms are also well designed to allow for better manipulation of the workforce and fleet during emergencies or changed circumstances by communicating well in real-time with everybody involved to make certain that efficiency is maintained as the priorities of the business change.    

Regulatory Compliance

One of the continuing issues at work in fleets today is changing regulations and the introduction of new legislation. Fleet managers are usually fully aware of the standard issues — such as ensuring their drivers have the correct CDL license for their state or have reached the age limitations to make deliveries cross country. However, in recent years the industry has seen new restrictions on driver operation hours, and mileage tracking requirements. There are expected to be more changes in the near future, and even regulations regarding emissions, and possibly automated driving technology. 

Mobile workforce management software today allows fleet managers to plan in advance routes that allow the driver to keep well within mileage and hours-of-service regulations. When unexpected disruptions occur during long-distance drives, fleet managers are able to predict how detours might affect compliance and communicate to the driver any requirements to take breaks, handover to a new driver, or even communicate to the customer the likelihood of a delay in order to pertain to safety requirements. 

Platforms that provide fleet managers with easy, flexible access to their workforce, alongside accurate data on their activities also allows for simpler adjustments to any changing legislative requirements. Companies can easily predict how regulations may affect their current working practices, and affect a gradual change management plan with minimal disruption.

Cybersecurity

As more technology is being introduced into the field service and logistics industries, the potential for damage caused by cybercriminals has become a reality that companies have had to face. Field service and mobile workforce teams shouldn’t underestimate how serious an issue this is. The risks range from the theft of valuable company and customer data to driver safety being compromised due to elicit access to onboard technology. Gladly, we are starting to see the implementation of smarter security strategies in logistics and other field service operations.

One of the more simple ways to address cybersecurity concerns is through the adoption of an advanced mobility platform that handles multiple fleet tasks and includes robust cybersecurity protocols. There are platforms on the market that take care of route mapping, communications, customer invoicing, and data analysis; reducing the need for fleet managers to use separate programs for tasks that may each come with varying levels of encryption and protection. 

However, it’s imperative that fleet managers discuss protection with the platform providers, and ensure that security has been an integral aspect of development from the outset, and understand how data is being secured not just during storage, but also during buffering and transfer between drivers in the fleet. 

To learn more or schedule a demo of Fleetonomy’s scheduling and dispatch platform for field service operations, contact us at info@fleetonomy.io

The post 3 Big Ways That Advanced Mobility Platforms Are Improving Mobile Workforce Management appeared first on Fleetonomy.

According to research by Volvo, “the largest reason that consumers have avoided purchasing an electric car is range anxiety. That is, 58% of drivers are afraid that they will run out of power before being able to charge their vehicle, while another 49% fear the low availability of charging stations.”

When providing mobility services, electric vehicles require a different value chain and processes to support success in the current business environment. The WEF report recommendations envision eMobility value creation across three dimensions: the environment, energy, and mobility.

With regard to the environment, the WEF states that “as the share of miles driven by EVs increases, urban mobility emissions will decrease progressively; electrification combined with a clean energy mix and optimized charging patterns will further reduce emissions, improving air quality and benefiting human health, with a much-decreased ecological footprint.”

Regarding energy the WEF finds that “EVs are a relevant decentralized energy resource (DER), providing a new controllable electricity demand, storage capacity, and electricity supply when fully integrated with grid edge technologies and smart grids. Smart charging will create more flexibility in the energy system, improving stability and optimizing peak-capacity investments. Fleets of electric and, later, AVs can amplify the potential of smart charging, through the aggregation of multiple vehicles and higher control of load profiles. This will also open the door to broader energy efficiency services.”

And finally, with regard to mobility, the WEF states that “EVs will become more affordable than vehicles powered by internal combustion engines (ICEs) as the cost of batteries declines. Smart-charging services will reduce charging costs (for example, by charging when energy prices are low, if dynamic pricing is implemented), and as prices decline, the potential for greater revenue streams for fleet operators rises, as they will be able to easily provide more electric vehicle-powered services worldwide.

EV Optimization Challenges

When looking to launch and operate profitable EV-based mobility services, the high level of technological sophistication required to power them can have substantial long-term implications for providers. For example, when an EV-based service is carefully planned and launched while focusing on operational efficiency and vehicle utilization from day-1, it means thousands of miles driven at a much lower cost than gas-powered vehicles that would otherwise cost much more.

To effectively manage electric fleet vehicles where charging requirements represent operational efficiency, organizations must have a mobility service management solution that provides visibility into planning, scheduling, and routing combined with predictive technology to maximize efficiency for both consumers and EV operators.

Choosing the right mobility technology platform to manage EV-based new mobility services is crucial and can help with the following challenges faced by the industry today:

• Capacity Planning
• Workforce Management
• Schedule Optimization
• Synchronizing Battery Charging with Total Fleet Constraints – charging locations and stop preferences according to predicted charging times and station capacities.
• Predicting Demand for Services

Additionally, when planning and scheduling services and new mobility initiatives based on electric vehicle fleets, operators must consider the following factors:

• Maximum vehicle range
• Mileage tracking
• Available charging stations
• Recharge times

Enhancing EV Fleet Efficiency with Smart Mobility Solutions – Fleetonomy and Havn by Jaguar Landrover

Earlier this month, Fleetonomy announced its most recent partnership with Jaguar Land Rover on their Smart Mobility service, Havn, in London. Fleetonomy was chosen by Jaguar LandRover to provide the end-to-end technology required to efficiently manage Havn’s EV-based premium mobility service which exclusively runs Electric Jaguar I-Pace vehicles.

Fleetonomy’s platform uses machine learning and AI to predict demand for Havn’s service. This is done by combining a variety of data sources, such as traffic, weather, events in the city, flight delays and historical data from the service itself. Predicting demand allows Fleetonomy’s platform to constantly rebalance the fleet, making sure vehicles are in the right place at the right time according to demand, thus reducing ETA, ensuring on-time arrival, and allowing Havn to run on higher utilization rates.

In addition, Fleetonomy’s platform constantly receives real-time battery level updates from all vehicles operating in the fleet. Our dispatcher engine will always make sure that a vehicle has enough juice to complete a journey, from the initial location to passenger’s pick-up point, to drop-off, and still have enough battery to make it to the nearest charging point.

Furthermore, Fleetonomy provides a smart charging strategy engine, which can make real-time decisions on which vehicles need to be charged, and when. For example – the platform constantly recommends the most efficient course of action in any given time when choosing between fast charging, which is quick but pricey, to slow charging, which is longer but much cheaper. Our charging strategy oversees battery levels across the entire fleet, and chooses which vehicles need to be charged, when, for how long, and for what cost, in order to meet demand and ensure profitability.

Fleetonomy’s smart mobility platform for automotive subscription services and ride-hailing models maximizes vehicle usage in fleet-based services and helps generate new revenue streams by launching efficient and profitable app-based mobility services.

To learn more or schedule a demo of Fleetonomy’s EV mobility platform please contact info@fleetonomy.io

The post Electric Vehicle Mobility Services: Overcoming the Challenges of Operating an Electric Vehicle Fleet-Based Service appeared first on Fleetonomy.

When considering the future of transport, one of the main challenges is maintaining an efficient and profitable service while providing a seamless mobility experience that works alongside legacy transportation systems around the world. 

Adopting and integrating new shared mobility solutions, however, require larger technological expertise for local transportation agencies. And today’s transit agencies are in a great position to leverage their experience in the areas of fleet management and asset ownership to provide flexibility and seamless mobility services for their ridership, help reduce traffic congestion and offer on-demand or pre-booked shuttle services while using technologies from third parties to maximize the effectiveness and costs.

In Pinellas County, Florida, Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) was the first transit agency in the US to offer a joint first/last-mile shared mobility service subsidized by public dollars. The PSTA’s “Direct Connect” program allows riders to get to and from bus stops in a taxi, wheelchair-accessible vehicle (WAV), or Uber TNC vehicle at a subsidized rate.

Launched in 2016, the PSTA Uber venture has gone through several iterations of pilot programs and testing to offer the best service possible for the county’s ridership. According to the study “When Uber Replaces the Bus: Learning from the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority’s “Direct Connect” Pilot,” what’s needed to successfully launch a shared mobility pilot program is good data and transparency from all parties, as well as concrete plans for outreach and evaluation, and the right platform technology to power the service.

Public/Private Partnerships for Shared Mobility Programs

A significant challenge to shared mobility solution adoption is creating public/private partnerships that leverage shared vehicle services such as Uber and Lyft while incentivizing riders to utilize the enhanced services provided by transit agencies.

Public/private partnerships were once thought to be an obstacle to shared mobility adoption as they may allow private contractors, especially large organizations, to dictate terms to the public and achieve a “competitive advantage” over public sector providers, including public transit. Private providers, however, do have advantages: cutting-edge technology solutions, greater customer service flexibility and more transportation option flexibility than public transit without the need for special permits and additional public sector employees.

Some cities and local county government transit agencies that invest in urban transportation improvements, both public and private, are building the foundation to transition from auto dependence to walking, biking or shared transit solutions to ultimately benefit their communities and the environment.

In the greater Seattle area, King County Metro Transit has launched an app-based “micro-transit” van service program called “Via to Transit” that provides on-demand rides to connect transit riders with light rail and bus lines. Via, part of King County Metro’s Innovative Mobility Program, is a private company contracted to provide vans, drivers and technology for the public transit service and has 18 vans in its fleet with some wheelchair accessible.

To date, the service has exceeded King County Metro’s daily ridership goals with more than 70,000 total rides taken. King County Metro’s Innovative Mobility Program is a great example of a mobility program that leverages emerging mobility services and technologies to provide new transportation options. Home to technology leaders such as Amazon and Microsoft, King County is exploring shared mobility, Mobility-as-a-Service, automated vehicles, and Smart Cities. King County Metro Transit believes that the best innovations come out of partnerships among government agencies, communities, and the private sector.

Choosing a Shared Mobility Solution

By combining the best features of public and private transportation, ride-hailing modules, mobile payment systems and data and analytics into one platform, transit providers can offer advanced shared mobility solutions for meeting rider needs. To achieve transit program success, agencies must also find the right technology partners and solutions that will enable them to plan, launch, scale and optimize new-mobility services while keeping services efficient and profitable.

Fleetonomy, the leading smart-mobility platform provider for operating and managing ride-hailing modules, offers a mobility platform made for transit agencies that maximize vehicle usage and helps generate new revenue streams for public and private transit providers.

Efficiency-Focused Mobility  

Fleetonomy’s Ride-hailing platform is built with optimization tools from the ground up so that transit agencies can efficiently orchestrate every part of their operations. This includes automatically including drivers’ schedules, fueling/charging, and vehicle maintenance according to predicted demand and live data feeds. 

Fleetonomy’s Ride-hailing Platform for transit agencies also ensures that mobility operators are putting their fleet to best use by minimizing idle time and maximizing vehicle usage. The platform includes advanced prediction engines that allow accurate demand prediction, matching each vehicle to customer needs, easily managing drivers and vehicles in real-time and operating efficiently according to data-driven insights. 

Get in Touch
Looking to enhance fleet efficiency for transit operations? Operating new-mobility services?

Chat with Fleetonomy’s new-mobility experts today to find out more about how fleet-based businesses can join the mobility game and increase vehicle utilization using Fleetonomy’s new-mobility platforms.
Contact us at info@fleetonomy.io 

The post The Uber Effect: How Transit Agencies Can Leverage Shared Mobility Platforms for Last-Mile Services appeared first on Fleetonomy.

Just as it’s upended so many other aspects of our daily lives, the mobile revolution is changing the way we rent cars. Ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft are already routine options for personal transportation. Now ride sharing, one-day rentals, subscription services, and even self-driving vehicles are easing into the picture.

While it’s true that today’s emerging mobility services present new challenges, don’t think they spell the end of the traditional car rental industry. It’s still growing, and as new options emerge the fleet management expertise of car rental companies is becoming even more relevant.

Competition from newcomers may be increasing, but with today’s advanced technology fleets can achieve greater efficiency, lower operating costs, and greater customer satisfaction.

The quest for happy customers

Car rental companies deal with an enormous number of vehicles, often in multiple locations all over the world, and a broad variety of customers. One of the fleet manager’s most challenging task is allocating the right assets to the right customers. What vehicles are available? Where are they? Who is likely to rent them? The answers to these questions are key to matching what customers want with what they get.

The trouble is, predicting vehicle availability and customer demand constantly bumps up against unpredictable factors like snarled traffic, dangerous weather, and major events popping up in specific locations. Making the wrong bet can result in unused cars filling lots and unhappy customers lined up at counter, asking for vehicles that just aren’t available.

Customers themselves add to the quandary. What kind of vehicles will be in demand today? When will they return rentals, and what kind of condition will they be in? It all adds up to uncertainty for the fleet manager.

It’s all about the data

To serve consumers who want cars immediately, rental companies are turning to smart technology to make the rental process faster and more convenient. Artificial intelligence (AI) offers perhaps the greatest potential to meet the challenge. AI’s real-time, on-demand data automates and informs more proactive decision-making—reducing operating costs, maximizing efficiency, and optimizing customer satisfaction.  

AI platforms built specifically for the car rental industry crunch data from many sources, leading to actionable insights. With up-to-the-moment information on weather, traffic, current events, airline schedules and hotels, fleet managers can tame the uncertainty and create more happy customers.

Technology can also predict how customers will use the assets. Take mileage distribution, for instance. A vacationing family is likely to use their rental car far more, say, than a business traveler attending a conference in the city. With this insight, fleet managers can rent a car with high mileage to the businesswoman and save the car with lower mileage for the vacationers.

Artificial intelligence can help balance the fleet between different locations as well. When there’s a big conference in San Francisco, for example, cars can be brought in from San Diego, improving utilization of the fleet.

Automation reduces mistakes and staffing demands overall; it can even promote more effective upselling at the counter. By providing better visibility into what happens with the fleet, advanced technology helps managers get better at their job.

Turning challenges into opportunities

While it may seem like the challenges are pressing in from all sides, in reality the car rental industry is still going strong. Healthy international tourism is a major booster, alongside strong economic growth in developing countries. And, of course, internet and smartphone use is projected to contribute to growth as it makes car rental ever more convenient.  In the U.S. alone, the market is expected to grow from $68.5 billion in 2017 to $106.2 billion by 2022.

Expert fleet management also helps car rental companies stay profitable, according to Alec Gutierrez of Kelley Blue Book. “From a cost management perspective, the rental car companies are best suited to manage large fleets of vehicles, which ultimately allows them to keep costs down.”

Opening new revenue streams

Moreover, with their experience managing large, geographically diverse fleets, car rental companies are ideally positioned to take up new mobility services. Better data makes it easier to create new revenue streams by branching out into new possibilities like subscription services, on-demand rentals and ride-sharing.

For trailblazing companies, autonomous driving presents an intriguing opportunity. Back in 2016, Enterprise Holdings executive Susan Lombardo predicted that the car rental industry would be an early adopter, helping to “introduce autonomous driving technology to millions of consumers.” Today, major players like Hertz and Avis are already considering partnerships with autonomous vehicle developers.

Car rental companies keep rolling

With efficiency absolutely vital to customer satisfaction today, companies that don’t reach for data-driven decisions will be left behind, as their customers will feel what’s lacking.

Industry expertise in fleet management, with a boost from advanced technology like AI, will keep car rental companies moving forward as the 21^st century rolls on. That expertise will, in particular, help them land on the winning side of the autonomous disruption—if they’re ready to act quickly.

So don’t write off car rental companies as dinosaurs just yet. As Chris Brown has noted, “What those in fleet know, the rest of the world is finally understanding: If you own the fleet, you own the future.”

Visit us: http://www.fleetonomy.io

Photo Copyrights: https://www.123rf.com/profile_rawpixel

The post Car Rental Companies Can Live in Peace with Mobility Services appeared first on Fleetonomy.

By 2030, the concept of private vehicle ownership will be nearly a thing of the past, according to predictions of The World Economic Forum. Experts are calling it the “rentership society” which is driven by Millennials and Generation Z’s who are less inclined to own things and would much rather take part in shared economies and pay for services instead.

Hello Shared Economy

In the midst of the global shared economy, stands the car rental industry. As new options emerge, the fleet management expertise of car rental companies has become more relevant than ever. Decades of fleet management experience, a loyal customer base, ownership of vehicles and the knowledge of how to maintain them gives today’s car rental industry a competitive edge in the emerging smart mobility space.

But something is missing.

With today’s advanced technology fleets can achieve greater efficiency, lower operating costs, and greater customer satisfaction. Those who wish to remain relevant and lead the smart transport revolution, are not only looking to fit their businesses to the new ways that people are getting around, but are also looking for ways to leverage new technologies in the market and operate their existing business in a way that is more efficient and that provides a better experience for their customers.

One of the areas that has progressed dramatically in the past few years is the availability of multiple data sources due to connectivity, and Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence technologies that provide valuable insights out of it.

To lay out exactly how technology is affecting car rentals today, we’ve prepared a breakdown of 5 ways in which Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing the car rental industry.

Fleet Utilization

Utilization is a game of demand and supply. In the past few years, data, which is considered the new oil for many industries, has created huge opportunities to better deal with this crucial challenge. By using AI-based technology, demand for services can be predicted and provide real-time and long term insights that can help rental companies become more proactive when planning and optimizing fleet utilization. Most data sources that can affect demand are already available today such as demographics, weather, traffic, airport schedules, social events, hotel occupancy, and many others. Correlations with different data sources can vary throughout different locations or countries according to people’s behaviors, and AI-based demand prediction models can adjust themselves according to each specific scenario.

Maintenance

AI-based prediction models are not only crucial for predicting demand but are also useful for predicting and managing maintenance efficiently across the entire fleet. There are multiple parameters that can affect when a vehicle will require maintenance. Some of them have to do with fixed thresholds such as mileage or time, while others can be more difficult to analyze and address in an efficient, cost-effective manner. These include real-time fleet telematics data,  vehicle data that is collected during periodic checks and external data such as weather conditions and customer driving patterns.

Dealing with various data sources and predicting the outcome is possible due to AI technologies, and can help fleet operators implement predictive maintenance. When maintenance is synchronized with the overall demand for service, car rental companies can maximize utilization and ensure efficient operations. For example, with the assistance of AI, car rentals can leverage one-way rentals to move vehicles towards far away maintenance spots, while eliminating gas and driver hours that would otherwise be required.

Customer Satisfaction

Just as real-time data analysis can provide driving advice, it can also help match the right car to each customer. As a result, each customer can receive a vehicle that has been specifically assigned to their needs while taking into account various different parameters such as pick-up time, car type, destination, and even specific requirements such as child car seats, racks for carrying sports equipment and even snow tires.   

Car rental companies are in a transformative stage, and are looking to provide an experience that will place their customers first and maintain a long term relationship with them. Artificial Intelligence can help create this experience by predicting customer preferences and offering recommendations based on them.

Revenue Management

Models generated by AI can help predict vehicle depreciation and report exactly when the best time would be to de-fleet and sell assets. Additionally, AI engines can constantly comb through the entire fleet data to make sure that rent prices meet the demand for services.

Before AI, one of the aspects of a Revenue Manager’s job was to run around, shop rates and key in new prices. By performing like a skilled analyst, AI tools have the power to enhance pricing management and optimize car rental rates according to pricing goals automatically, as well as keep close track of depreciation. By utilizing AI tools, revenue managers can review useful insights such as ongoing forecasting and optimization, and free their time to manage higher-level tasks.

Autonomous

Rent is here to stay, but the autonomous vehicle era may provide new rental use-cases that companies can already prepare for today. For example, autonomous vehicles will soon be synchronized to customers’ daily schedules and arrive exactly when they are needed. They will take care of our deliveries, getting us to our destination on time whether it be work or a far vacation spot, and even pick up or drop off our children.

One can debate how far these use cases can go, but it’s clear that there’s a big learning curve. Companies that will start using the technologies that enable personalization, usage prediction and automation which rely heavily on AI will gain a huge advantage in learning the friction points early on and being prepared to lead the market when autonomous vehicles become part of our daily routine.

Images by: scharfsinn86; profile_nito500; oneinchpunch

Car Rental Market Data by Auto Rental News

The post 5 Ways That Artificial Intelligence Is Revolutionizing the Car Rental Industry appeared first on Fleetonomy.

Building and training these machine learning models require input from
massive quantities of data, in particular, historical data from actual vehicles. Automotive data must be matched to related datasets such as location, day of the week, weather, traffic, nearby events, and more.

“With rich data on traffic flow in a particular geographic location, Fleetonomy can deeply understand and predict demand for various mobility services such as ride-hailing, car sharing, car rental, vehicle subscription services, and ultimately — autonomous vehicle trips,” says Lior Gerenstein, Co-Founder and CTO at Fleetonomy. “Fleetonomy’s platform can then use these predictions to simulate how such services would behave in that location and manage them more efficiently in real-time.”

Fleetonomy did the initial work on its models using multiple data sources, including trip data gathered from smartphones, public transportation datasets, and by directly integrating connected car data from vehicle fleets. However, some of these data sources have limitations:
• Smartphone data does not provide enough accuracy because it includes data points from people walking, cycling, or taking the bus. It also does not contain exact markers denoting when trips started or ended.
• Public datasets are only available from a few geographies such as New York and Singapore, and the limited number of vehicles (public transportation and taxis) makes it difficult to extend the models to trucks and private cars.
• OEM data can be hard to integrate and use for purposes outside of vehicle operations. “Each OEM has unique systems, datasets, and formats,” Gerenstein explains.

Why Otonomo?
Fleetonomy turned to Otonomo’s automotive data services platform to enrich the scope of the historical data for its models. “As we looked into different methods for getting historical data, we found that Otonomo offered the best opportunity to use data from real vehicles in our models,” Gerenstein says. “It’s easy, and we didn’t have to invest much time to get it to work.” The
fact that Otonomo could provide both individual data points and aggregated data points (trips) saved additional engineering resources.

Solution
The Fleetonomy engineering team began by integrating data from a major
metropolitan area in Europe. The process of bringing the data into its model took only three days. “The data from Otonomo was very well structured and formatted, and the API was clean,” Gerenstein reports. The team then built a simulation to show how Fleetonomy predictive models would improve key performance indicators such as vehicle utilization rates, required fleet size, and average waiting time for a ridesharing customer.

“By being able to demonstrate significant KPI differences before and after the simulation uses our model, Fleetonomy helps its potential customers build business cases for deploying our service,” says Israel Duanis, Co-Founder and CEO at Fleetonomy. “Using this tool has great value for us during our sales process.”

Results
The simulation indicates that using OEM data for demand prediction decreases the median wait times for a ride-hailing customer from 330 to 190 seconds, a reduction of more than 40%. Furthermore, Fleetonomy’s simulation, again utilizing OEM data provided by Otonomo, has shown that the same service level can be achieved using five fewer vehicles. These metrics represent a significant reduction in the size of a large fleet.

“Being able to have a single provider for automotive data, so we can integrate once and get coverage all over Europe and the United States, is a huge win for our business,” Gerenstein concludes. “It allows us to enrich our models and provide incremental value to our customers. For us, the value of Otonomo sums to demonstrable measurements, which are shown both in the planning phase using simulations and in real-time with operational services.”

Profile
Fleetonomy offers the next generation of data-driven fleet management solutions to plan, optimize and operate smart mobility services.

Highlights
• Built simulation for predictive models using historical trip data matched to related datasets.
• Proved that its optimization solution improves key performance indicators for fleets.
• Integrated with the Otonomo platform in three days

Use Case
Fleet management, optimization, and demand prediction

Automotive Data Types 
Anonymous, Historical

Cloud Platform
Cloud-agnostic
Microsoft Azure compliant
www.fleetonomy.io

About Fleetonomy
Fleetonomy provides a cloud-based, end-to-end fleet management solutions designed to maximize fleet operation efficiency, reduce operational costs, and create new revenue streams based on new intelligent mobility services. Combining AI, machine learning, and big data algorithms, Fleetonomy’s platform provides actionable insights that help fleet owners make better day-to-day decisions regarding inventory management, customer preferences, maintenance and more.

About Otonomo
Otonomo paves the way for new apps and services that make transportation safer, more convenient, and truly rewarding. We offer the first neutral automotive data services platform, which provides simple, secure data access and transforms data into actionable insights for services such as predictive maintenance, emergency services, on-demand fueling, insurance, and smart cities.

The post Fleetonomy Collaborates with Otonomo to Solve Critical Optimization Problem appeared first on Fleetonomy.

In today’s world of smart transportation, the various methods we use to transport people and goods continue to transform at a rapid pace. While automotive OEMs, transit agencies, car rental companies, and even energy corporations across the globe plan and launch smart mobility services such as carsharing, ride-hailing, dynamic shuttles, dockless scooters, and more — many of us can’t help but wonder if this marks “the beginning of the end” of car ownership in favor of shared-economy and sustainable transportation.

Private vehicles are only used about 5% of the time. Cars, which are known to be the second biggest investment a household can make, can cost around 17% of an average household’s income. So, it’s becoming tough for consumers to justify such a large investment given that they tend to remain parked and unutilized the remaining 95% of the time.

To better understand where the mobility industry is heading next, and what sort of changes we can expect in the coming years due to technological developments, Fleetonomy’s Ofir Gattenyo chatted with industry veterans Steve Girsky, former vice chairman at General Motors, and Mary Chan, former president — global connected consumer at General Motors.

Steve Girsky: This is what I think at a high level: The average American driver spends about 40 minutes a day in a car. Now, if you were a CFO of a company, and one of your people said I’m going to buy an asset and I’m only going to use it 5% of the time, the CEO would move you right out of there and probably fire you.

One of the most exciting things about this technology is that it’s enabling much higher utilization of what’s essentially capital asset. Cars are becoming mobile phones on wheels, this allows you to do more things, changes your user experience, you can update your user experience remotely and get a lot more bang for your buck out of the vehicle.

Ofir Gattenyo: As younger generations become more inclined to travel with on-demand transportation such as ride-hailing, e-scooters, and bicycles, they seem less and less eager to own automobiles, or even be able to drive. 2018 showed a downward trend in obtaining a driver’s license among young Americans (16-24), and the numbers are only expected to continue dropping. Similar transformations of our time have already been witnessed in the way that people around the world listen to music, watch videos and even rent apartments.

Consumer demand seems to be shifting towards shared economy transportation, what are companies mainly focusing on in today’s smart mobility industry?

Mary Chan: I think the main focus is on driving higher efficiency in shared economy business models. To have a meaningful subscription model you really have to have a robust user experience in terms of providing the right supply when the user wants it, having the capacity, and keeping the cost substantially better than what they have today.

Girsky: One of the things that you learn is that all companies are different and move at different speeds. New automotive companies seem to move faster than others depending on where they are. GM, for example, was very early in adopting connectivity in the car. Others are focusing on electrification and some have a “wait and see” attitude. That said, I think the world is opening everybody’s eyes to the fact that they need to try new things and there are new smart management platforms that can offer a substantial payback early on whether you are a rental car company, automotive OEM, car dealer or fleet operator.

Gattenyo: While the industry is using electrification as a stepping stone to the autonomous vehicle era, fleet managers must keep up and aim towards higher consumer utilization in order to run efficient and cost-effective operations.

What are your thoughts on electrification when examining some of the current business models?

Chan: For electrification to really make it for consumers and be more cost effective you obviously have to drive utilization higher than 5%. So, this whole concept of the fleet, in a shared economy, where people are utilizing the vehicle a lot more than 5% could really justify the additional equipment and all the things that you bolt into the EV as part of the cost equation.

The cost of the traditional ICE versus the EV takes a long time for the payback to show because the cost of the battery is higher. So, the tradeoff is really not there in an immediate sense. The only way the tradeoff is going to be there is if you can drive utilization higher when looking at the bigger picture.

The industry is looking at this as the future of mobility. When the vehicle is not offered in an ownership model like we are used to today but is available in a shared model, there are going to be a lot more companies interested in figuring out how to manage that fleet in the marketplace.

For instance, how do you make sure that the fleet is optimized for where the traffic demand is going to be? I think that AI and data that goes through a management platform is really going to add to the business intelligence of some of these car companies.

Gattenyo: What do you see players in the industry doing in order to harness these new technological abilities? What kind of technologies are they looking for?

Girsky: I always found the concept of white labeling a fleet solution across a number of customers interesting. The technology allows mobility operators to aggregate more data in the backend, but from the brand experience, it can be very specific.

Chan: No car company is going to build this as a vertical solution, and they can go to a third party and receive a very simplified end-to-end fleet management solution. I put more faith in the backend piece of the solution. It depends on the OEMs — they may want to choose their own interface, but the backend solution should be a very common algorithm.

Gattenyo: As next-generation fleet management solutions have moved from being tested by innovation departments to actual deployments within formal business units, the shift to providing on-demand services seems more present than ever.

Mobility operators are testing how they can provide a better experience for their customers while simultaneously creating immediate profit by improving fleet utilization, and some companies are already ahead in the game. Who, in your opinion, is leading the revolution and how are they doing it?  

Girsky: Key players could be anybody from car companies, fleet managers, rental companies, and dealers, but this stuff also enables people who are not traditionally in the business.

You can see car dealers starting to get into subscription model services, so I think this also lowers entry barriers for certain companies and creates profit opportunities for others to better utilize existing assets. For example, if you’re a car dealer then you sell used cars, new cars, parts, service, and financing. Now, if you can add a shared model on top of that it can create an opportunity to sustain your business and position it in the new market.

Gattenyo: Many companies are still struggling to execute profitable business models from these services. For instance, this past January Ford’s dynamic shuttle service Chariot was shut down due to failing ridership numbers.

Where does that leave mobility operators that are integrating AI and Machine Learning into their systems?

Girsky: In my opinion, stuff traditionally in the car business takes a lot longer than anybody thinks. So, people who are getting into it now have a big learning curve. The payback may take a little longer than they think but it is going to be there.

I think we are going to improve utilization and do a lot of things with data that will improve the customer experience, but it will take longer than people think. So, there are first-mover advantages in understanding the friction points early on.

Chan: The usage model would also change as you get more and more vehicles in a fleet or shared economy taking a larger percentage of the marketplace. Really being able to collect data and predict how people are going to utilize the fleet more efficiently is going to create value for mobility operators.

Traditionally, car companies don’t have that data today and service companies will end up losing their direct relationship with the consumers if they don’t shift into these new services.

*Originally posted in Auto Rental News

The post Exploring The Future of Smart Transportation With Former GM Execs, Steve Girski, and Mary Chan appeared first on Fleetonomy.

A couple of months ago, I participated in an industry-expert panel on the future of fleet management. It was moderated by Chris Brown, executive editor at Auto Rental News who brought us all together Kristopher Luey from Vulog, Don Puniani from Ridecell, Don Finney from OTA Keys and myself. It was interesting to discuss some of the opportunities that often disguise as challenges in today’s rapidly changing new-mobility space.

For those of you who missed it, here is my take on the #future of fleets, the car rental industry, and the new transportation market on the way to autonomous vehicles.

“Own the fleet, Own the future. Car rental companies buy, sell and manage more vehicles than any other entity in the world and thus, have vast experience in managing fleets.”

Chris Brown

In what ways can car rentals leverage their inherent strengths in a new era of mobility? 

There are many TNC companies out there, but they usually don’t own the vehicles. So, they do not have the same level of understanding that the car rental companies have and I believe that’s the car rental industry’s strongest advantage. The way I see it, the car rental industry can leverage their ownership of the cars themselves and vast experience in fleet management in one of three ways : 

1. provide the assets
2. provide fleet management best practices 
3. provide the service as a whole 

In recent years, we have seen examples from all of the three approaches. 

When it comes to providing the assets, huge rental companies such as Avis, Hertz and FlexDrive are offering their vehicles to services such Lyft Express Drive. This allows these companies to expand their business by offering rental vehicles to TNC drivers via a 3rd party App. 

When it comes to providing fleet management services,  Avis also partnered with Waymo, the self-driving car subsidiary of Alphabet, to provide maintenance services for its fleet of autonomous vehicles in Phoenix. Avis is in charge of maintaining the vehicles, in things like charging, refueling and cleaning.

The partnership is allowing Avis “first mover” advantages in the autonomous mobility market by introducing themselves and becoming meaningful to autonomous players as well as gaining experience in understanding the dynamics of autonomous vehicles. 

And, when it comes to operating their own branded service, we see some players that are already out there and trying new initiatives such as Avis ZipCar or SIXT’s ‘MaaS by Sixt’ app.

So there’s really a lot that rental companies can do, and they are in a good position to seize these new opportunities.

According to Fortune,  an analysis of $140 billion of travel transactions over the past two years showed that 63% of previous car rental customers have minimized their spending on car rentals, resulting in almost a $3.2 billion loss for the rental industry.

Additionally,  56% of previous car rental customers ceased to acquire car rental services altogether in favor of on-demand app-based rideshare services. However, according to Epsilon-Conversant‘s report, car rentals are still retaining a loyal demographic of older customers. While 9.8M consumers still  use car rentals but don’t use rideshare services, the report says, there are still 9.4M million people who use ridesharing services, meaning there’s still a long way for ridesharing companies to go.

In the near term, how is the replacement of personal miles with shared mobility affecting car rental? 

It’s clear that there’s an ongoing trend of customers moving from rent to ride sharing services. Yes, there’s a difference in the way each generation travels, but I think it also depends on the travel use case. Long distance trips with my family, for instance, will still require renting a car. 

So the transition is here and car rental companies understand that they need to adjust in order to stay competitive. The thing is, it’s not only about competing with new means of moving from place to place. Today’s customers are expecting the traditional rental experience to be app-based, seamless, personalized and on-demand, and this encourages car rental companies not only to try and understand their place in the new mobility space but also to embrace digitalization in their day to day rental business as well.

The world is changing and transportation is transforming. As a result, we can see examples of rental companies around the world expanding beyond traditional rental models on a mission to maintain long-term relationships with their customers, stay relevant and be able to provide a unique experience. 

For example, Enterprise Car Share teamed up with Princeton to reduce traffic congestion on campus and offer students an app-based on-demand transportation option. Another good example is Hertz’s ride-hailing Initiative. Today, Hertz is channeling rental units into the ride-hailing market and their activity is planned to grow by 30% to 40% throughout 2019 according to Auto Rental News.

What technologies can car rental companies adopt today that will ensure sustainability but not necessarily require a wholesale shift to a new mobility model? 

By laying out industry relevant strategies along with making smart use of their extensive user-habit data, car rental companies are seemingly in a good position to become a big player in the mobility transformation, and they are already showing signs. In 2018 the U.S. car rental market reached a revenue record by passing $30B in annual revenues for the first time and overall revenue grew by $1.38 billion from 2017, which shows just how much potential there is for this market.

There are a lot of different technological approaches that can really help car rental companies that don’t require a wholesale shift. 

Data Driven Fleet Utilization – Predicting Demand

Utilization is a game of supply and demand. In the past few years, data, which is considered the new oil for many industries, has created tremendous opportunities to better deal with this crucial challenge. By using AI-based technology, demand for services can be predicted and provide real-time and long term insights that can help rental companies become more proactive when planning and optimizing fleet utilization. Most data sources that can affect demand are already available today such as demographics, weather, traffic, airport schedules, social events, hotel occupancy, and many others. Correlations with different data sources can vary throughout different locations or countries according to people’s behaviors, and the demand prediction models can be adjusted according to each specific scenario.

Enhanced Maintenance and Repair Efficiency

AI-based prediction models are not only crucial for predicting demand but are also useful for predicting and managing maintenance efficiently across the entire fleet. Multiple parameters can affect when a vehicle might require maintenance. Some of them have to do with fixed thresholds such as mileage or time, while others can be more difficult to analyze and address in an efficient, cost-effective manner. These include real-time fleet telematics data, collecting vehicle data during periodic checks and external data such as weather conditions and customer driving patterns. Dealing with various data sources and predicting the outcome is possible due to AI technologies, and can help fleet operators implement predictive maintenance. When maintenance is synchronized with the overall demand for service, car rental companies can maximize utilization and ensure efficient operations. For example, with the assistance of AI, car rentals can leverage one-way rentals to move vehicles towards far away from maintenance spots, while eliminating gas and driver hours that would otherwise be required.

Revenue Management

Models generated by AI can help predict vehicle depreciation and report precisely when the best time would be to de-fleet and sell assets. Additionally, AI engines can constantly comb through the entire fleet data to make sure that rent prices meet the demand for services. AI tools have the power to enhance pricing management and optimize car rental rates according to pricing goals automatically, as well as keep close track of depreciation. By utilizing AI tools, revenue managers can review useful insights such as ongoing forecasting and optimization, and free their time to manage higher-level tasks.

Going Paperless 

Customers today are looking for a seamless onboarding experience. These technologies can easily be adopted by car rental companies and help bring back abandoning customers that gave up the hustle of renting a vehicle. 

How does the local franchised or independent operator optimize his or her business to participate in the coming market? Is there an opportunity in smaller markets? Do they have any advantage over the big guys?

Some things may be more challenging for businesses with smaller fleets. For example, going on a car-sharing initiative might require a large fleet to begin operations with in order to be able to meet demand for the service, and justify it financially. 

But there are other areas that are not dependent on fleet size. First , utilization is a key KPI for both big operators and small ones, and being able to use new data driven technologies, predict demand, predict and plan maintenance and predict your customer behaviour leads to increase in fleet utilization. Based on Fleetonomy’s install base, we were able to show great improvements in fleet utilization for both large and small car rental operators.

Secondly, there are the opportunities coming in from new modes of mobility, and smaller operators have a lot to benefit from listing their vehicles on on-demand platforms.  

For instance, in 2018, Turo added independent car-rental companies to their platform, including small firms that often have special inventories. In Britain, for example, these boutique rental companies have vintage Rolls-Royce’s and custom Jaguars that people can now rent on-demand via Turo.  

What role will car rental have in the new discipline of Fleet Management as a Service? 

Mobility and delivery providers from the tech side are growing dramatically without owning a fleet of their own, and that creates a huge need for Fleet Management as a Service that can only be provided by a particularly experienced player like the auto rental industry due to the fact that they are the biggest fleet operators in the world. In 2017 Avis and Waymo began a partnership that is becoming a standard in one of the ways that Fleet Management as a Service might look like in the autonomous field. Avis is also helping Waymo before their cars even get on the road by providing license plates and registration, this is something a rental car company like Avis can do because of its close relationship with DMV’s in every state.

I believe that if played right, this can be only the beginning. What started in cleaning, oil changes, tire rotations, and general checking might later include maintenance for additional core technologies that are added to the fleet, such as sensors or battery charging and eventually could evolve into real-time remote operations which will be needed when vehicles become fully autonomous. 

What does the market look like in the medium term, say five to 10 years? 

I believe that the car rental industry is well positioned when it comes to being one of the big players in the mobility space, but I also think that it will take a few years for the transition to fully take place.

I think we will witness the rental industry’s evolution in the new market happen in stages: they will most likely transform from an asset provider to a service provider (for mobility operators) and eventually becoming full suite mobility operators themselves. It’s a game of owning the value chain and I believe that eventually the car rental companies will want to own it all. 

As asset providers, the focus will be on renting out vehicles while focusing on revenue management and digitizing the rental experience. As service providers the industry will most likely be focused on Fleet Management as a service for others, leveraging their deep understanding in maintaining fleets, until eventually, we will see car rental companies operating multimodal services. This will require a big shift in technology and operations but the reward will outweigh the risk in the long run. 

What partners are essential in the new mobility ecosystem? 

On the way to autonomous mobility it seems that the industry is sort of laying down the tracks while, at the same time, inventing the train itself and there’s a need for partnerships between a lot of different components involved in the space in order for things to succeed.

For example, we can look at the way that Uber and Lyft entered cities, before city authorities really understood what they were dealing with. As a result, traffic congestion increased  instead of going down, because there wasn’t a proper cooperation. We are experiencing a similar story when it comes to e-scooters that entered cities before thinking through what effect it would have on the citizens, sidewalks and more. Today these scooters are being left all over the place, often in a hazardous manner, but these problems can be solved with a bit of cooperation. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of these services and I use them myself on a daily basis, but in order to fulfill their full potential – you need all of the players working together.

There’s a very interesting scooter pilot that the city of Portland published a few months ago in which they map the different KPI’s that the providers need to meet regarding the number of scooters allowed per area, proper positioning and more. They’ve tested the different providers accordingly and are now setting policies that operators need to follow if they want to operate in the city. This is exactly the kind of cooperation I’m talking about. 

I think that city infrastructure should become more supportive as well. When you look at car sharing for example – some cities only have station based operations while in others it’s a free floating model in which I can park the car wherever I wish as long as I follow the parking rules. Different cities decide how to handle their parking infrastructure and that affects the quality of service that we receive as end customers. 

When we talk about infrastructure we also mean charging grids. Electrification is trending, energy companies are entering the game as well and  collaboration with them is crucial. 

It’s generally more efficient to have a supplier ecosystem. Companies who want to move faster are partnering and enhancing each other’s businesses and making progress on the way to smarter mobility and evidently, the autonomous era. 

Where/how will car rental be a player in the era of autonomous vehicles? 

It seems that most of the market has acknowledged that they need to progress from just providing the vehicles to provide their experience in a Fleet Management as a Service model at the very least, just like we have seen in the Waymo-Avis partnership, and it’s interesting to see what their next step may be, and if they will choose to take a step forward and own the whole value chain. 

In my opinion, if the rental industry wants to be a leading player – they need to own the whole value chain and be the ones who will manage the entire interaction cycle with the end-users. 

The post How Car Rentals and Fleet Managers Can Grow in the New Era of Mobility appeared first on Fleetonomy.

Episode #1: Next Generation Fleet Management Platforms with Israel Duanis, Co-Founder & CEO of Fleetonomy  

We’re so excited to share that M4edge podcast, by Michael Leifman and Marco Annunziata dropped their first episode as part of a brand new series on the future of mobility.

Tune in to episode #1 featuring Fleetonomy’s Co-Founder & CEO, Israel Duanis discussing new-mobility services & platforms, enhancing vehicle utilization and preparing for the autonomous future.

Listen on Itunes
Listen on Stitcher 
Listen on Spotify 

Or scroll down to read

Michael Leifman: Hi, M4Edge listeners! Thanks for being curious. In today’s tech parlance and in city planning – mobility includes a bunch of different issues, but they all have one thing in common: they shape the quality of our everyday lives. How we get to work, to school or to our friends’ house can make the difference between a pleasant daily city experience and a barely tolerable one. And, one way or another, it’s going to change because of technology. 

So, the “Mobility” umbrella covers lots of things, including for example – autonomous vehicles, driverless cars, call them what you will. Artificial intelligence plays a role in other parts of mobility, like, for example, fleet management, for which you can imagine optimization algorithms, would be crucial. 

The company we discuss on today’s episode is called Fleetonomy, and they are building fleet management systems specifically with autonomy in mind. Fleetonomy’s offering is designed to maximize vehicle utilization, which is the key to fleet management. It does this by leveraging data from the car itself, from the fleet owner’s data, and from multiple public sources, and then layering on machine learning algorithms on top of that data.

Fleet management is part of that landscape of mobility we talked about, but both the domain and that word include other forms of getting around. Mobility includes e-scooters, rideshares, bike shares, electric vehicles and their charging stations, traffic management, road congestion pricing, and more. In addition to Fleetonomy, this mini-series will include Waycare, a traffic management company, and MaaS Global, makers of  Whim. When you put all these together, you can begin to envision a really different transportation future, one in which how we move around, when, with whom, in what mode, and maybe even to where can be dramatically different from the way it looks now. 

Given how crucial mobility is to economic activity, and here I’m using the word in its plain English meaning – this sector’s transformations can really reverberate widely. 

Once we’ve aired all three episodes, Marco and I will add a brief post-game conversation discussing mobility and the three companies together. We hope you enjoy and without further ado, here is Israel Duanis of Fleetonomy.

Traffic Congestion & the Mobility Revolution

Marco Annunziata: Israel Duanis of Fleetonomy, thank you for joining the podcast, welcome to M4Edge.

Israel Duanis: Thank you for having me. I’m very excited to be here with you.

Marco Annunziata: Israel thank you very much for joining us, and we have a standard opening which is meant to make you very comfortable and relaxed for the course of the conversation and our standard ice-breaking opening is – why on earth are you doing this? is there something in your background, in your previous experience that made you decide this was the problem you wanted to tackle?

Israel Duanis: I was always very interested in automotive technologies. In my early days in the army, I was part of the team that actually built an autonomous vehicle in the DARPA challenge. Later on, when I got my master’s degree, my final project also had to do with building a management system for dynamic shuttles in on-demand transportation services. So, I really like this on the technological perspective, but even more importantly I live in Tel Aviv. I live there with my family, it’s an amazing city, but we do have a big issue with traffic,  with pollution with public transportation which is not so advanced. You know, really simple things like picking up my girls from kindergarten and doing that on time, is nearly impossible. 

So, guess my passion for automotive tech, along with how bad day to day transportation is here back home, made me realize that I wanted to do something to change it.

I met Lior, my Co-Founder, and CTO in the army. We were both literally sitting chair by chair in the same top-secret team and he is the best CTO I know we’re also good friends. So, we liked this idea and we just decided to start working on it. We did so from a small apartment in Tel Aviv and fast forward we’re here today.

Michael Leifman: I know that for years there was the talk of the Tel Aviv subway which didn’t arrive and didn’t arrive and didn’t arrive and I’ve experienced that traffic.

Israel Duanis: Yeah, we’re still talking. I mean there is construction, there is progress but it’s not here yet. Tel Aviv is changing, you can see today a lot of e-scooters for example. So, the change is here but back when we founded the company, we didn’t have those yet and it’s still difficult to try and get from place to place.

Marco Annunziata: You know based on what I’ve seen in Italy I’m not sure if scooters will make the situation better or worse.

Michael Leifman:  And what you’ve seen in San Francisco no doubt. He doesn’t mean the Vespa scooters like in Rome; he means the little scooters. Right? Vespa’s they’ve had forever.

Technology, Business Models & Data

Marco Annunziata: So, Israel, Fleetonomy helps to optimize a vast range of activities. Your customers include fleet owners, Automakers and mobility service providers. Can you walk us through each one of them and help us understand how Fleetonomy helps and what services they pay Fleetonomy for?

Israel Duanis: Sure, when you zoom out and think for a second about what we do in our mission – we see ourselves as a company that is building the next generation of fleet management platforms. Focusing on creating higher fleet utilization, improving efficiency and automatically synchronizing riders, vehicles, drivers while also taking into consideration maintenance constraints. 

When you think about all of the industries that you mentioned, you talk about scooters, ridesharing, car-sharing – at the end of the day, they are all assets, right? And, we see today that almost all of these industries are talking a lot about utilization and asking how can we become more profitable? 

That’s where we step in because we believe there is a need to look at demand in a different way. You have a lot of data out there that if you utilize in the right way, you have a better chance to meet supply whether you’re operating car sharing, scooters, ride-sharing and more.

So, I think when you look at the technological aspect of these industries, they all have the same challenges. Yes, the front end may look different, the user stories might be different, but the challenges are the same. These are the areas that we are solving for all of these industries.

Marco Annunziata: So, we understand that what you do generally is fleet optimization and we understand that you saw an opportunity with new utilization of data, but what is it exactly that you do? How do you optimize the fleets and how do you make money by doing that?

Israel Duanis: We’re helping our customers, which among them you can find top tier automakers, car companies, and public transportation operators, to better understand their demand. 

Understanding demand has to do, first of all, with leveraging all the data sources that affect your demand. It could be traffic, weather, sometimes even hotel occupancy.

So, you first need to collect all that data and we help to do that. 

Then you need to crunch the data and turn that into insights and we help our customers turn these insights into actions and the actions are basically meeting the demand for their services. 

This allows fleet operators to be proactive. being proactive means giving the right amount of vehicles, dispatching them in the right way, positioning them in the right way, handing them out to maintenance in times that demand for the services is low and more. We believe that by choosing this approach and using data-driven technologies that were not available 20 or 30 years ago, companies can be much more efficient.

We already see theses industries moving to businesses models that are much more on-demand, more real-time and more personalized, so there’s also a big need for a different approach when it comes to operating a fleet. 

Michael Leifman: Does the service differ if it’s a taxi company or if it’s a fleet of delivery vehicles or a fleet of e-scooters, is the basic package the same? And do you get paid in the same way?

Israel Duanis: The basic package will look the same. We consider ourselves a SaaS company, so our customers pay per usage. It’s an easy-to-deploy solution. We do see that a delivery service will act differently sometimes than transporting people from place to place. So, some packages will look the same, but sometimes there’s also a need for adjustments.

Michael Leifman: You said per usage, what’s that?

Israel Duanis: Usage will mean you pay per vehicle. If you’d look at how customers have often paid in the past for fleet management, you usually find that they pay per vehicle. So, we’re not changing the way our customers are paying. We really want to keep the deployment of our platform easy to use. 

Easy to use is not only the way that you technically deploy the platform, but it’s also how you go for procurement and how easy this is to partner with.

Turning Insights into Action

Marco Annunziata: So, Israel, you mentioned that insights you give to your customers allow them to deploy the vehicles and have them ready closer to where the demand is. I’m curious to dig a bit more into the sources of data. 

You’ve mentioned not just the plastic data but also data like hotel occupancy rates, like flights – which I suppose helps, for example, car rental companies to have enough cars ready near airports when there is a need. Can you tell us a bit more in detail, where do you get the data? What are the sources, whether you also get data from the vehicle themselves?

Israel Duanis: Yeah sure. Data is a very important thing in our industry and as we said, our business model is not about monetizing data, it’s about selling licenses. But when you look at the data sources, you can say there are a few layers. 

The first layer is public data. Data that you can find out there that comes through traffic, weather and things like that. It’s just a big challenge of how to choose the right public providers and as you can imagine, there’s a lot of data out there. So, how do you know what’s the most reliable one? How does it change from region to region? It’s not only collecting the data, but it’s also about taking the right insights from that data.

On top of that sometimes we partner with additional data providers because not all data is available. So, we have data providers that can fill in some of the layers that are missing in some cities.

And then there’s the third layer and that comes from our customers. 

Our customers can say okay let’s look and try to understand what the patterns of demand for our service are in a certain location or a segment of customers, and then it’s basically their data. So, its finding patterns in their data, but they own the data it’s theirs. When you combine the public data and the customer’s data, you find some very, very interesting insights.

I think it’s important to mention that we’re not just about the insights. We are helping our customers take action. So, insight is only one of the benefits that you can get by using our platform, but at the end of the day, we believe that if you cannot connect this insight into action, then the insight is not very valuable.

Preparing for Autonomous Vehicles

Marco Annunziata:   And so, does part of the package include some sort of automation on the customer’s side? I don’t know if there is an autonomous vehicle in the fleet. Will it get a message instantly to re-route or to use this opportunity to get maintenance or is there a requirement for the immediacy of human action on the other end once the instruction or the insight is received so that the action is taken?

Israel Duanis: We are building our IP in a way that will suit automation. I mean, the vision of our company is to eventually provide an operating system for autonomous entities. That’s why every building block that we’re building today, needs to meet requirements of also doing everything automatically. 

The thing is that we can debate when exactly the autonomous era will be here and fully deployed. In addition, there is also a scenario where customers won’t always want to have full automation right? They might still want to be in control. So we’re also keeping the ability for a human operator to be in the loop. 

Michael Leifman: Okay that makes sense. So, there’s something particularly interesting in the way you’re framing this I think, in that you’re designing an offering for a macro-environment that’s not fully built out. I don’t know if when you say full autonomy that’s level three or level four, but let’s assume it’s all the way and as you said, it’s not here yet. So how do you do your planning? Do you do your financial modeling around that assumption of whatever will happen in 2020 or 2025?

Israel Duanis: We are aware of the timelines. I think all of us here will be very surprised if we’ll see everything fully autonomous by 2020 or even 2025, I mean I’ll be happy if that happens, but we’ll be surprised. I think we have a good understanding of what will happen in the coming years though, so we’re able to make sure that our road map and technology fit there.

For example, our routing system is a turn-by-turn navigation system that assumes you don’t really have a driver. Because one of the things that will be very important in the autonomous era is replacing our own best practices. We know when we have events in the city and what roads we should avoid and we know a lot of similar things that we take into action when we drive. Now, imagine when having no drivers, you will have to automate managing the vehicles idle time as well. Because taking me home is easy but what would a driver do once I’m home? 

This is only one example of the way that we are approaching fleet management. We’re here to provide value today, but we’re also making sure that we are ready to provide value once autonomy is here.

Marco Annunziata: You mentioned at the beginning that what drove you to start this venture is the realization of traffic problems in Tel Aviv and how the limits to mobility actually impact our lives. You’re also saying now that as autonomous vehicles become more widespread, Fleetonomy will be able to add more value, but also the Fleetonomy technology will impact the way in which autonomous vehicles are deployed. 

So, the question is, are you involved in discussions with CTO authorities in Tel Aviv or elsewhere in relation to both the current impact on mobility and also prospects for autonomous vehicles being adopted more quickly?

Israel Duanis: When we think about autonomy, there are a lot of players like fleet managers and automakers that need to succeed together in order for us to enjoy the full potential. So we see ourselves as an integral part of this revolution.

And, as you said, it also has to do with regulators or cities or states. So yes, we’re in discussions with all the players and they all have different takes. 

For instance, I just recently read something about an interesting pilot of e-scooters in a certain city. Some cities don’t want to have scooters yet, right? Then you see a different approach which says, look, a change is happening so let’s try and understand it, let’s pilot it and work with the operators and the software providers. So, I think there are a lot of players here with different approaches. I think the approach that each and every player will choose is crucial for how quickly they’ll be able to complete this transition.

Urban Mobility and Data Privacy

Marco Annunziata: Do the cities, based on your experience, seem to be further ahead in the process or any best practices you already identified that you think should be adopted more widely?

Israel Duanis: What we’ve seen in Phoenix in the past few years had a very big impact, not for regulation, but it also brought Waymo there and it brings businesses and it can create a large ecosystem that sparks out of a few decisions made by a city and state. 

So, we do see some of the cities that we’re operating in whether it be in Europe or in the United States that are very progressed and are willing to take the chance, and some are not. I mean I don’t want to mention those that are not because we’re trying to be positive here, but for example, I can tell that Tel Aviv is really changing…

Michael Leifman: What do they rhyme with?

Israel Duanis: Bell Aviv! kidding. 

In Tel Aviv, there’s actually been a big change and we’re seeing that. Half of my employees here come to work on e-scooters. So, I’m optimistic.

Michael Leifman: Yeah, there are a few reasons why cities are hesitant. One of them is simply people’s fear of autonomy generally and fear of robots. But the second or one of the other reasons why cities are unsure of whether or not to embrace this new trend has less to do with fear of ‘robots gone wild’, and more to do with traffic management and fear of continued urban sprawl.

I think it’s interesting in some sense that your coming at this from an angle, not of providing the car but of managing the fleet and optimizing the fleet and in a way I think that can serve to alleviate some cities fears and I think that theoretically there’s a way to make a case to a city or a regional planner and say, say look – we understand that this could create more sprawl, but in fact if you’ve got fleet management, that’s either a hedge against that option or in fact it’s a way to produce the opposite effect. It’s a way to produce a less traffic intensive region. Do you think I’m right? And if yes, is that an approach you’ve taken?

Israel Duanis: I think you’re completely right. I mean I totally agree with what you just said and if you’d look at the past few years with Lyft and Uber in cities. In the beginning, everything was great. Some people said it will even reduce congestion but if you talk today with people of the city municipality, I think most of them will say there’s still a growing need for the services. 

I’ve used Uber and Lyft a lot and it’s a really good way to move from place to place, but in some cities, it just brought more vehicles into the city. So now cities understand that the market is educated or most of the market is educated and now we make sure that also the city itself is safe and that transportation is working correctly. 

Michael Leifman: Following the same line – have you reached out to or have you – are there prospective customers or actual customers that are city transit agencies? I know that bus management is a huge deal and there’s the stock that particularly for last-mile problems integrating fleet management and autonomy solutions into mass transit.

Israel Duanis: Yeah, that’s also an area that we’re operating in. It’s not only the bus operators but the train operators as well. I mean, if you’d ask public transport authorities how they used to think about the future of the coming years, they would not tell you that its only fixed routes or it’s only our dynamic routes, they’d say it’s a combination.Also, some of the fixed routes are okay and work. So, we want these routes to be in place but there’s a question of what do we do with the last mile? 

So, it’s also a very, very interesting industry, I mean as a start-up we always need to think of the wide span of customers and industries that we can approach. We also need to think about the selling cycle. Working with the operators or automakers, I think it’s also interesting to see the selling cycle getting shorter because they understand that there’s a big need.

Marco Annunziata: On this topic actually can you help us think through the impact on automakers because one argument could be that as you improve the efficiency of fleet utilization, actually what this does is helping to provide more mobility services with a given stock of vehicles, which is as we argued earlier – one implication or a possible negative implication is having those vehicles more often on the roads. As a result, you might create more congestion, but also if you’re utilizing the capacity of the existing fleet better, you could argue you need fewer vehicles, so does that have a negative impact on automakers?

Israel Duanis: I can tell from what we are experiencing today that automakers understand that if they want to be relevant in the coming 10 – 20 years, they need to embrace the change and to be part of it, and I think it’s really healthy for them as companies. You can find today a lot of automakers that are already operating services. Some of them can be ride-sharing, some can be rent subscription. You can see today a lot of new ways for them to say – we also want to provide services. 

Michael Leifman: I want to go back to the question of data before, Marco was asking how you collected data, I’m interested in who owns the data, what do the customers get to do with the data? What do you get to do with their data? There’s this Harvard Professor Shoshana Zuboff who has got a book out right now called – The Age of Surveillance Capitalism or something like that and she’s written about these issues before, but this book is getting some press recently and it’s about the power in her view, unwarranted of the big data-gathering companies. 

What do you do with the data? What are you allowed to do? What do your customers know you do? How does that work?

Israel Duanis: For us, data is a tool that helps us build demand prediction models and other capabilities that serve our customers and we do so while meeting GDPR data regulations. So, I think it’s easier for us not to even deal with the data challenges because that’s not our monetization channel. We’re selling insight capabilities and data-based actions and our customers are fully transparent with their data. So, we feel pretty comfortable with the question of who owns the data.

Michael Leifman: Got it okay. That’s an easy answer.

Marco Annunziata: I fully take your point Israel that you’re not selling data, you’re selling software as a service, so your business model is immune from the privacy and data sensitivity issues but I’m now envisioning this future where once we have autonomous vehicles and so providers of the service – of the mobility service, can distract me from driving, because I’m not driving, I’m just sitting in the vehicles and they know a lot about me. Then there will be a big market for providing advertising within the vehicle and then having information about my preferences, my behavior where again you use these avenues to target advertising to me. So, I think it’s going to be interesting to see how some of these issues play out, again having fully understood and fully acknowledged that this is not something that has an impact on your business model. 

Israel Duanis: When I think about my phone or about the car that will drive me, we are already exposed to a lot today. So I think that there’s a broader question here. 

It does not only have to do with autonomous or not, but it also has to do with the way that we live today. So, the way I see it, if we have a problem with that, then I agree that there are a lot of questions we need to ask ourselves about the market, with having ads being pushed into our screens, in our vehicle, I think you have these problems already today. So, I don’t want anyone to wait for autonomous cars to solve these issues, because they need to be addressed. 

About Fleetonomy

Marco Annunziata: Let’s switch back for a sec to Fleetonomy itself, if I’m not mistaken the company is about three years old. How big is the team right now and any key learning’s, lessons that you’ve taken from the growth of the company so far?

Israel Duanis: Our team is about 15 people and growing. On the business side, I think it’s important to bring in the right people to join. I think that building a company is something that is super exciting. We have good days, we have bad days and I think once you make sure you have the most professional people and also the right vibe around you, that makes it an incredible ride. So, it might sound trivial to just surround yourself with good people, but I think that’s priceless. 

Marco Annunziata:   That’s a mistake I made with Michael.

Michael Leifman:  Well played.

Israel Duanis: Yeah so for your next startup Marco – do your homework  
But yeah, when it comes to people it’s important, and I think it’s also about choosing the industry. I was lucky to choose an industry with an impact that is really transforming the world. 

So if you can choose the industry and the product that you’re building, focus on an area that you think is good for the world. That might sound trivial, but as an entrepreneur, you have a lot of options, some of them are better and some of them do not always create a lot of good for the world and I think it’s a very important thing when you make that decision.

Michael Leifman:  We’ve got a couple of minutes left. Look ahead 20 years and where do you see mobility? Where do you see fleet management? Where do you see Fleetonomy?

Israel Duanis: When we imagine cars on the road today, we imagine people driving their own vehicles right. Now imagine the same people getting around in cars but take away all of the drivers. Sounds pretty chaotic right? How do the cars know where to go? Which tasks do they take care of? What will happen with the car once the rider reaches their destination? And in a world where cars drive themselves and are held by large fleet operators, you need some sort of a smart operation center and that center will tell each vehicle where it’s going and officially handle all the different variables in real-time. 

In 20 years, imagine an autonomous vehicle will take care of all of the day-to-day tasks that we have to do ourselves today, like going to work, delivering groceries, even picking up our kids from school. However, sometimes the same vehicle that might take us to work in the morning will be allocated to deliver lunch to the office later in the day. So, some cars might be multipurpose and to manage this enormous fleets of autonomous vehicles, you need an automated operation center that will manage huge fleets of automated vehicles.

Michael Leifman: I was kind of hoping you’d say something about managing fleets of flying cars but you didn’t go there. No?

Israel Duanis: Flying cars are a subject for a whole new discussion.

Michael Leifman: Okay well listen thank you, this has been great and really interesting, so thank you for speaking to us. Before you tune out, you please, please, please forward this episode to someone you think will enjoy it. Share it on social. Help us spread the word, and as always – thanks for being curious.

The post M4Edge Podcast and Fleetonomy Discuss the Future of Mobility appeared first on Fleetonomy.

“Subscription companies are growing nine times faster than the S&P 500. Why? Because unlike product companies, subscription companies know their customers. A happy subscriber base is the ultimate economic moat,” says Tien Tzuo, author of Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company’s Future — and What to Do About It.

Automakers worldwide have not only taken notice but are also trialing and launching their own subscription services, with good reason.

“By 2025-26, vehicle subscription programs could account for nearly 10% of all new vehicle sales in the US and Europe,” forecasts researcher Sarwant Singh, head of the Mobility & Visionary Innovation Group at Frost and Sullivan. 

Automotive subscription services that let consumers use a car for a flat, all-inclusive monthly fee provide convenience, flexibility and cost savings. In addition, it provides an added benefit of “flipping” or changing car types depending on a consumer’s lifestyle needs with just a few days’ notice. For example, a commuter car may be used for city driving during the week and then swapped out for an SUV on the weekend with a vehicle subscription, for instance.

Automotive Subscription Key Drivers and Benefits

For consumers, the major benefits and motivating factors for signing up with a vehicle subscription service vary. 

They may include allowing subscribers to pay an all-inclusive monthly fee that covers insurance, roadside assistance, and maintenance, thereby eliminating the need to commit to a lengthy lease and down payment or having to purchase a car. 

Vehicle enthusiasts, alternatively, who want the flexibility and access to a variety of car models from a specific brand may want to try out a new car every month with easy cancellation and return policies.

Finally, convenience is critical with consumers desiring simple, temporary mobility solutions with online vehicle subscriptions that are all managed through a smartphone app with the vehicle provider delivering the car to their location.

Subscribing to Your Favorite Car Brand Is a Thing

Today, major automakers, fleet owners and new-mobility providers are launching subscription services with different business models across various markets.

In the US alone, BMW launched its Access by BMW subscription service in the Nashville market. Mercedes-Benz is testing its Mercedes-Benz Collection subscription service in Nashville and Philadelphia and Audi has introduced Audi Select in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area and Audi on Demand in San Francisco. Ford’s used-car subscription service Canvas operates in San Francisco and Los Angeles offering its Lincoln brand of cars. And Porsche Passport, Porsche’s subscription service, operates in the Atlanta area.

Enhancing Fleet Efficiency with Smart Mobility Solutions

With so many subscription services being offered, automakers and fleet owners must find the right technology partners and solutions that will enable them to deploy a service that not only allows them access to multiple smart-mobility technologies but also provides everything needed to launch and manage successful app-based, new-mobility offerings. 

As part of its Multi-Service Fleet technology, Fleetonomy offers a smart mobility platform for automotive subscription services that maximize vehicle usage and help generate new revenue streams by launching app-based mobility offerings.

With the Fleetonomy platform, automotive subscription services enable businesses to maintain long-lasting relationships with their customers and offer app-based vehicle rental services, according to market demand. Additionally, subscription services can be personalized by matching the right vehicle with the right customer at the time of reservation and according to a customer’s pre-selected preferences.

Real-time insights generated by Fleetonomy’s automotive subscription platform also can predict the time it takes for each vehicle delivery and manages “flip” requests while simultaneously correlating maintenance and cleaning requirements across the entire fleet.

By keeping up with mobility trends and adding app-based services, automakers and other fleet owners will be able to compete and thrive in the growing automotive subscription service market.

To schedule a demo of Fleetonomy’s automotive subscription platform contact us at info@fleetonomy.io

Photos by bowie15, rasstock, scyther5

The post From Automakers to Service Providers: A Brief Guide to Vehicle Subscription Services appeared first on Fleetonomy.