TelMi hardware is being fitted to all new cars supplied by Fleet Hire to salary sacrifice customers through its Car Salary Exchange division as an aid to more efficient scheduling of vehicle servicing.

And following trials with a number of major corporate fleets, it is also being retro-fitted to a number of mixed car and van fleets, with the capability to provide a range of management information including mileage capture, fuel usage monitoring, carbon emissions measurement and fuel economy and risk ranking for drivers.

UK-based Fleet Hire has built its TelMi offering on the moDrive platform which was launched last year by Ebbon-Dacs in conjunction with motor accessories supplier, vGroup International.

Earlier this year, Fleet Hire took the decision to switch all its vehicle purchasing to Ebbon-Dacs’ e-procurement platform, Leaselink, and the latest move is seen as strengthening the business partnership between the two companies.

Fleet Hire’s chief operating officer, Chris Joyce (pictured below), said there were a number of benefits from the relationship which would make the launch of TelMi as ‘smooth and efficient as possible’.

“The name,” he explained, “comes from a combination of ‘telematics’ and ‘management information’ and it’s our intention to provide a multi-layered service with different levels of reporting and management information for our customers, depending on their requirements.

“Customers can choose from a base level which incorporates mileage capture, fault code recording and service scheduling to more detailed dashboards which provide league tables of the best and worst drivers based on their behaviours and their fuel economy and risk profiles.

“Our salary sacrifice customers will benefit from more efficient service scheduling as we will capture the mileages on their vehicles to ensure that servicing is carried out at the appropriate times, as well as identifying any faults on their vehicles.

“For corporate fleets, there are a number of operational benefits that will help them run their fleets more efficiently. These include features such as mileage and fuel usage capture, carbon emissions reporting, advanced service scheduling and many more.”

Joyce added: “For example, we are also incorporating a level of real-time vehicle tracking that shows the current and previous positions of vehicles, a feature that will be highly applicable to companies with fleets of service engineers using significant numbers of light commercial vehicles.  And there is a driver ID facility which is important for fleets where there may be multiple drivers.

“The system can also identify start/stop times and locations, and all drivers have to do is tag journeys as business or private and their purpose. This allows reconciliation of business and private mileage for reclamation on a journey by journey basis.”

Joyce added that there had been no privacy issues with drivers regarding the installation of telematics in their company cars, which was one of the perceptions of telematics’ implementation.

“We certainly haven’t found that to be the case so far, and we have implemented TelMi on several fleets with mainly company cars, as well as on mixed fleets of cars and vans,” he said.

The moDrive solution is based around “the most sophisticated and proven black box technology currently available, which is utilised by tens of thousands of vehicles throughout the UK”.

The solution is being offered to leasing companies, fleet management suppliers and dealer groups with fleet centres targeting SMEs, and can be customised to suit their and their customers’ exact requirements.

Robert Pilkington, director of the Leaselink Division at Ebbon-Dacs, said: “We believe this new telematics solution will enable Fleet Hire to offer its customers a suite of capabilities that meet their exact operational requirements.

“We are continuing to work on the development of the solution. Our aim is to be the leading service provider of the best technology solutions to meet the needs of leasing companies, fleet management suppliers and dealer groups and their customers,” he said.