Abstract
The effective operation of a fleet requires precise information concerning all the vehicles. Besides the accurate GPS coordinates, widespread vehicle sensor data are necessary as an input for reasonable decisions. Most of today's fleet management systems do not achieve their potential because they hardly integrate sensor data provided by vehicle information system. Thanks to OE manufacturer’s improvements never before has so much useful information been readily available on bus systems to fleet management system developers as today. There is almost no need for any supplementary sensors to fulfil the everincreasing requirements of vehicle operators. The new generation of FMS systems provide extended functionality. Their task is more than just collecting and storing various data. Modern FMS systems add value by providing secondary data based on intelligent algorithms to support fuel control or maintenance related technical inspection of the vehicles. There has been a project carried out on a special fleet to prove theory in practice. The objective is to provide support to the fleet owner for an efficient and up-to-date technical inspection of the vehicle. The vehicle data available on the different CAN buses were categorized for potential FMS system usage. The categories are fuel usage control, service and maintenance support, time sheet and work process monitoring, accident reconstruction and vehicle security. The raw data are acquired and pre-processed by the on-board unit, resulting in derived signals generated by specific algorithms. On-line warnings, vehicle failure related information, vehicle technical status reports help to prevent bigger repairs and organize maintenance. With the integration of fuel usage related data from different sources, fuel manipulation can be eliminated; furthermore careful driving can lower fuel costs. A robust driving style monitoring algorithm was also implemented to form a profile for any given driver providing the analysis and ranking of all the drivers. Measurements have been carried out under artificial and real circumstances to prove the effect of the driving style for fuel and maintenance costs. The introduction and application of such a support system presumes commercial vehicles with high technical level, but when it is available there is a great potential of cost savings with a little effort of integrating the technical inspection support into the overall fleet management system. KEYWORDS – fleet management, fuel costs, driving style monitoring, maintenance costs