Appointed with the task of seeing if telematics would help the company improve routing service calls, Toromont CAT needed to find a telematics solution that fit the company’s needs for accurate, real-time data. Knowing where the technicians are in relation to the service calls would help to reduce customer wait time and minimize the miles driven to get to each job site.

In addition to addressing the challenges the company knew it already faced, adding telematics shed light on other efficiencies the company wanted to tackle, such as safety management disputing accidents, as well as creating a more fuel-efficient driver.

To address these challenges, Toromont CAT hired a fleet manager who’s job was to add telematics to fleet and get the surrounding indivually operated CAT dealerships to use it as well.

“We basically said, let’s dispatch together instead of individually, so now the trucks are moving shorter distances.” By dispatching together, customers can have the closest dealership come to service their equipment and pay less on mileage for the service, though they might have to wait longer; or if they need immediate assistance and a dealership further away is available, they’ll pay slightly more on the travel rate. This has given the dealerships the ability to be completely transparent with customers, reducing the amount of customer concerns on their bills.

Another easy-to-spot routing inefficiency was where each technician was assigned. Since the technicians take the trucks home at night, by sharing location data across the branches managers realized that some technicians were working at a CAT dealership further away than the dealership closest to their home. By re-assigning certain technicians to a closer dealership, the dealerships have been able to save even more on fuel.

Through this improved routing, according to their fleet manager, the branches have been saving significantly on fuel. For example, after the first year of having Geotab, Toromont CAT increased its fleet size by about 18% while the company’s fuel expenditures dropped 4%, despite the cost of fuel rising that year by 22%.

This information has also been useful as a training tool. Toromont’s fleet manager uses it to show drivers what could’ve been done differently in order to prevent a particular mishap, whether or not a Toromont CAT driver was at fault. Prior to using telematics, the company had a fairly bad safety record on the road, but since having the system, Toromont CAT has only had one serious accident, and by using the real-time GPS information and telematics on driver behavior they were able to prove the company’s driver wasn’t at fault.