Over 500,000 connected vehicles are rolling all over Scania’s 100 markets, continuously sharing data for analysis. Ten years ago, as the first brand in the business, Scania introduced a communication device as a standard in all vehicles, enabling customers to improve performance in their operations and for Scania to collect scientific data about product use and analysing logistics patterns.
Lead Product Manager for Fleet Management Services, Venugopal Gangaiah, cannot underestimate the importance of having large numbers of vehicles connected and considers this to be one important milestone for Scania:
“It is vital in our journey towards becoming a sustainable end-to-end solution provider of transport. Scania wouldn’t be where it is today in terms of knowledge about products and customer behaviour, without the first vehicle being connected some 20 years ago, making this possible. The Fleet Management Portal and later launching our own communicator in 2009 were also strategically important milestones – not to mention the various telematics awards collected by Scania over the last decade.”
From 100,000 to 500,000 in seven years
During 2014 Scania reached 100,000 connected vehicles and the number have since then risen with almost 60,000 yearly to recently pass 500,000. Since 2019 it is also optional to connect industrial and marine engines.
Although all new vehicles leave the factory, equipped with a communicating device, the customers need to sign a contract before Scania can process their vehicle data, allowing commercial service packages of various levels. Free of charge is the Monitoring Package, supplying access to Fleet Management Portal (FMP) and the Fleet App, where customers receive e-mails on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis, showing basic vehicle performance and consumption.
Most popular of the more advanced service packs is the Control Package. It gives more detailed information about efficiency, productivity, safety and environmental impact of the business, not possible some years back. The information from more than 90 data parameters are not enough in itself though, fleet owners also need to make use of this intel through Scania, to really thrive on the benefits.
What will happen in the future?
“Customers making the most of the Fleet Management Services (FMS) can really see the benefits of the data at hand,” says Eva Sahlström, Project and Communications Manager at Sales and Marketing. “As one example, the Swedish customer, LindholmsGruppen, a producer of wooden houses, with sawmills and with all transports in-house, mentioned Scania FMS services in their annual sustainability report, as a helpful tool to reach their goals of efficiency and lower emissions.”
Customers can currently follow their vehicles based on engine or fuel categories. With increasing electrification of heavy transports, more milestones are on the horizon. Upgraded hardware and software will also make tracking of battery electric vehicles (BEV) performance possible. Venugopal again:
“Current communicator C300 will be upgraded to a C400 in the next step, enabling quicker and more advanced data collection and analysis. This will result in even more modular and tailored services and is a prerequisite for reaching our science-based targets (SBTi). Emissions data show tank-to-wheel facts by default today in the Fleet Portal, but soon it will also be possible to view the well-to-wheel figures, another milestone to look forward to.”
