Global telematics company CalAmp has announced the launch of two new products that will enhance the visibility of fleet operations and provide for long-term cost savings while improving driver safety. iOn Tag and iOn Vision solutions, now added to CalAmp’s existing suite of telematics services, will offer greater flexibility, broader asset monitoring and cost-efficient integration to its users.
iOn Tag is used with diagnostic test equipment and service tools, helping fleet operators monitor and protect their critical assets in real-time. CalAmp provides a flexible API interface, allowing fleet operators and telematics service providers (TSPs) to adopt it directly into their custom applications.
iOn Vision provides fleet operators and service providers actionable video intelligence to mitigate liability and improve fleet safety. This solution includes a smart Wi-Fi camera that comes with a built-in telematics edge device and video server, helping management to accurately assess driver behavior and act on the insights to improve fleet safety on the road.
FreightWaves connected with Michael Burdiek, the CEO of CalAmp, who explained that the company felt the need to address the issues fleets had with tracking and gaining visibility over assets in real-time.
“Fleet operators are often responsible for thousands of dollars’ worth of critical equipment and assets required to deliver their services to end customers. Most existing fleet management solutions don’t effectively track ancillary assets in relation to service vehicles, which can cause costly service or project delays,” Burdiek said.
During its engagement with fleet managers and TSPs, CalAmp understood that the lack of a cost-effective, all-encompassing asset visibility solution in the market was telling.
With few alternatives to tie different visibility features onto a single platform available, fleet managers were often forced to switch between several applications to gain comprehensive visibility into operations. However, switching between different platforms can be difficult and highly inefficient.
Burdiek pointed out that this made full integration more difficult and resulted in fleet managers having a fragmented view of daily operations. It also made training drivers a complicated affair, as the use of multiple enterprise applications would limit the effectiveness of these solutions.
“Now with CalAmp iOn Tag service, fleet operators and TSPs can deploy custom solutions to more effectively manage a wider range of vehicles and assets with full visibility and edge intelligence. Moreover, this comes at a lower cost than alternative, stand-alone cellular-based solutions,” said Burdiek.
The feedback on the new visibility solutions has been very positive. Burdiek explained that the early customer trials with iOn Tag services showed customers utilizing the service in creative ways for use cases such as tracking tools and small assets on their commercial and service vehicles, driver identification and asset inventory tracking.
“CalAmp iOn Vision is still in development, and we have a waitlist of customers looking to trial the solution in the late spring,” said Burdiek.
When iOn Vision video telematics is made available commercially, it will be bundled with the iOn Tag service, CrashBoxx crash response, driver behavior scoring, and additional iOn suite of telematics services to provide fleet managers and TSPs complete control over their operations through a single enterprise-grade platform.