Our team ventured on a 2-week telematics journey in Abu Dhabi to expand our database with vehicles, which are unavailableon the European market. During our stay, we had a chance to analyze and map 40 exceptional cars, including monstrosities, like the Lexus LX and the Land Cruiser J300, as well as light commercial vehicles, for instance, the Toyota Hiace or the Hyundai H1.
The purpose of the visit
The objective of our Abu Dhabi visit was to deliver high-quality parameters to our partners that they can use to make data-based decisions. At the same time, we used the extracted data to broaden our vehicle database with the use of our FMS Gateway G2 solution.
Vehicle identification and measurement is a crucial step in fleet management and tracking, as each vehicle uses its own “language” (protocol) to communicate while monitoring solutions utilize a unified standard. This is why we need to apply technologies like the FMS Gateway G2 to extract and convert the signals and the messages of the vehicle into parameters that can be interpreted by fleet management software.
Why Abu Dhabi?
You might ask why did we had to travel to Abu Dhabi to scan 40 more vehicles? Aren’t there enough in Europe?
Well, the vehicles we scanned and measured are not in commercial use in Europe. The reason behind this is the European market's environmental protection and security regulations, which do not allow brands to sell vehicles above a certain emission level or without meeting the minimum level of security requirements. These regulations are not as strict in the Middle East. Moreover, they don’t impose as much tax on importing vehicles from other countries, like China, Japan, or the United States. As a result, Abu Dhabi proved to be an ideal place to expand our database with a wide variety of new data.
What does the vehicle measurement process look like?
There are predefined and unified processes we follow in the case of every new vehicle we map using our solution. First, we identify it, register it based on its chassis number, create photos from all angles, then we look for the measurement point we can use, like the OBD plug.
It is important to note that even if we encounter error codes during the diagnostical health report, we return the car in the same state to the owner as the purpose of this analysis is not to repair the car but to gather accurate and trustworthy data to our partners as well as expanding the fleet database.
Data validation
After our colleagues or measurement partners complete the data reading with the help of our measurement system, they send the dataset back to the engineers in the Hungarian office for a thorough check-up. Then, the engineers review it and tell it back to the on-site colleagues, who validate the data in real-time. As two teams are working on the same dataset simultaneously, we can ensure its punctuality and accuracy.
What kind of data can the FMS Gateway G2 interpret?
Our FMS Gateway G2 solution can collect plenty of parameters. This includes the following, without being exhaustive:
- High-resolution vehicle distance
- High-resolution vehicle distance
- Total fuel used
- Total engine hours
- Wheel-based speed
- Clutch switch
- Brake switch
- Cruise control active
- Fuel level
- Engine speed
- Axle weight
- Vehicle ID
- Tachograph Driver 1 and Driver 2 card
- Tachograph Driver working state
- Engine coolant temperature
- Fuel rate
- Instantaneous fuel economy
The collected parameters open the door to a tremendous amount of use cases by providing invaluable insights for every industry where they manage fleets.
Special cases and requests
It depends only on how the client intends to use the extracted parameters. Most of the time, they have specific requests that we need to fulfill. For instance, one of our partners wanted to closely monitor fuel consumption in their agricultural vehicles to optimize their employees' driving habits and routes.
The greatest challenge in the process
The most difficult part of the job – after we have access to the vehicle - is finding the data source where our professionals can connect the gateway. Most of the time, the local mechanics have immense know-how about the disintegration and reparation of the vehicle, though they don’t know where to look for the necessary ports. This is why our experts or measurement partners need to travel abroad and examine the car thoroughly.
Every brand has its own place to hide the access point, but they frequently change it in new models; this is why finding it is one of the most significant challenges in scanning any new vehicle.
Conclusion
In this article, our intention was to provide a sneak peek into the process of vehicle reading and its challenges in a different part of the world. Fortunately, thanks to years of experience and adequate technological solutions, we are able to bridge the gap between each car’s internal communication protocol and the standard of telematics solutions. During this 2-week intensive journey, we had the chance to successfully expand the Inventure fleet database with 40 new cars and fulfill our local client's requests regarding data extraction.
