End-to-end Fleet Management Solution

There are plenty of fleet management systems out there offering various ways to track your vehicles, but what makes Sweden’s Jiricom stand out from its competitors is that instead of having to choose from and install a bunch of different devices that measure different things, Jiricom offers an integrated fleet management system that is portable, simple to use, and easy to install.

In Sweden, like in many other countries, commercial vehicles are required to keep driving logs, a task that can be both a time consuming and tedious process. Not keeping logs, though, can mean heavy fines from the authorities. Jiricom’s fleet management solution not only offers a simple and easy way to meet regulatory demands, it also helps you keep an eye on a host of other related factors, all of which help you optimize your fleet while keeping costs down.

“The automatic driving log with driver identification lets you know exactly who is driving which vehicle at what time,” explains Rickard Flodin, CEO Jiricom. “Date, time, stop and start addresses, distance, the odometer – these all have to be logged to meet regulations, but the device also gives insights into everything from fuel consumption and adherence to speed limits to vehicle usage. It even tracks CO2 emissions, something that is increasingly a differentiator, particularly when it comes to public tenders.

Having both driving log and driver ID on the same device makes us unique in the world of fleet management – we’re the only company in the world that offers this.

Jimmy Thörnlöf COO Jiricom

A comprehensive & integrated vehicle management system

On one end of the Jiricom solution you have the hardware – the portable, plug-and-play device that connects to the vehicle’s power and can be attached to either a driver or a vehicle. On the software side you get the data and insights into nearly every aspect of driver behavior and vehicle performance. Data is sent every twenty seconds while driving and when the vehicle isn’t be used it still connects three times a day, just tell the server it is alive.

“Most fleet management systems have one device for driver identification, another for GPS tracking, and yet others for other tracking needs,” says Rickard Flodin .“The big advantage with our device is that everything is in one unit, it’s easily installed, and also it’s portable, so it can be switched from one vehicle to another.

“On the software side of things, you can choose what you want to see. Some people really want to get into the details, such as when and how often the vehicle is used, scheduling, route taken, speed of vehicle, geo-fending, etc., while others only want data on fuel consumption and who is driving which vehicle. It’s up to you what data you want to see, and you can adjust this if you find you want more insights down the road. Ultimately, having an end-to-end solution means you can make the best use of your resources, with the data to back up your decisions.”

Jiricom also gives you a clear view into your fleet from a service perspective. You can track each vehicle’s service history, as well as when it’s time to take any particular vehicle for inspection.

When you have a small fleet, maybe three or four cars or trucks, it’s easy to keep track of when one of them needs new inspection verification. On the other hand, if you have hundreds of vehicles keeping track of service and inspections can be a logistical nightmare.

When you log into the Jiricom server you see a dashboard with a summary and statistics, such as how many trips taken, how many kilometers driven, how many vehicles active per week, etc. You can also see the driving log, the vehicle’s license plate, stop and start addresses, route taken, the time of the stop and start, travel time, distance, consumption, CO2, business trip, customer trip or private trip, as well as purpose of the trip, including whether it’s private or business.

“You would typically look at the map and all the stats related to it,” says Jimmy Thörnlöf, COO Jiricom. “You can zoom in, get a satellite view, and even track the vehicle if it’s stolen or know exactly where a vehicle was – or was not – if there is an accident. And because we’re a Swedish company, we think about things like snow. A lot of people complain that snowplows haven’t cleaned their road but with our system you can immediately see whether the snowplows have been on a particular road and when.”

Jiricom offers an extension for congestion fees, which allows you to automatically calculate business and person costs. You get an excel report that show tax, fares, different zones, etc., and there’s also a vehicle booking system.

“Just say you have 100 vehicles but 500 employees,” says Rickard Flodin. “You can book a car through the system, see which cars are booked and also get a notification in your calendar. You can also use the booking system to optimize your fleet because you can see whether you have enough cars or maybe you have too many. Lots of employees complain there are not enough cars, but usage reports can help you understand how or if you need to adjust your fleet.”

Customer base

One of Jiricom’s biggest customer bases is municipalities and regions, which maintain significant fleets of vehicles in order to serve their communities.

“Municipalities and regions operate almost like they’re companies,” says Rickard Flodin. “There are a lot of different community needs they need to address – things like home healthcare or public safety – and these all require vehicles for staff. Our biggest public sector customer has connected around 700 vehicles to the Jericom fleet management solution and it’s an area where we will continue to grow.”

Beyond the public sector, Jiricom works with smaller companies, such as plumbers or craftsmen, where the small commercial fleet can benefit from Jiricom’s solution not just with the automatic driver’s log, but also by monitoring driver behavior and other factors that can lead to cost savings and even better public perception. If you have a driver who is consistently speeding or otherwise driving recklessly, your company’s reputation can and most likely will suffer. By tracking your vehicles, the data you collect can identify where there is a problem and allow you to rectify it quickly before it gets out of hand.

“Our third customer base is cooperation with other companies who white label our device,” says Jimmy Thörnlöf. “These would typically be a company that already has a number of products and/or services they offer to the market and who want to add a fleet management offering to their portfolio. This of course not only helps us sell our products, the re-seller gets a very good product, so everyone wins.”

Connectivity

IoT is at the heart of Jiricom’s solution – without connectivity nothing is going to work, so it’s critical that they have a good connectivity provider.

“We also need roaming,” says Jimmy Thörnlöf. “Our customer’s vehicles travel all over the country, as well as across borders, so we need to make sure our provider has the right roaming agreements to ensure connectivity no matter where the vehicle travels, so that we can collect data anywhere.”

Jiricom manages their SIMs through their own platform, as well as with Tele2 IoT’s connectivity management platform 2CONTROL, Cisco IoT Control Center. This allows them to address any challenges that arise, such as a device sending way too much data, quickly.

The future

Jiricom sees its solution as a vehicle management system, one that makes it easy to not just control all aspects of your fleet, but also to get the insights you need to optimize it. The company is also expanding into new markets and is looking for new partners.

“We’re all about connected freedom,” says Rickard Flodin. “Right now, we’re connecting cars, but in the future, we could be connecting all sorts of things. What we do is try to provide the best devices and features on the market, with both hardware and software. We have complete system integration, from the service side to the unit you install – we have the whole chain, and we will apply that model to other solutions we develop.”

If you would like to learn more about how IoT can enable your business, please get in touch.