The car will soon be one of the most intelligent connected car via sensors and embedded software, Machine to Machine technology (M2M) fits more in the transport sector and in every vehicle or connected car.
By 2015, 28.7 million cars will be connected. In 2020, revenues generated by M2M in transportation will amount to nearly $ 157 billion (see also: The M2M market: $ 15 billion in 2012, 31 billion in 2017) as projected by industry analysts and market. If there is a lot of noise around applications for private vehicles, companies can find this technology in many use cases to improve their processes and create new revenue streams.
In this global market, three applications should be distinguished by the evidence of their use cases: fleet management, cargo tracking and applications related to the insurance of persons, vehicles and goods.
With M2M, a company can for example monitor in real time the different connected car in its fleet. Using the Geo-location features, will optimize its touring vehicles, reducing fuel expenses while improving productivity and protection of employees and vehicles. Thus drivers solutions already in place have uncovered seven million stolen or diverted vehicles to the South American continent , according to figures provided by the telecommunications operator Telefonica which is operating in this area.
The real-time monitoring provides better protection of connected car (s) and employees, since incidents are known almost immediately. It’s the same in the shipping industry with tracking containers. A shipowner has also developed an application sending a warning to its customers who own a container when the ship enters the zone within 100 nautical miles from the port of arrival. This will immediately schedule the pickup truck, reducing the time of reloading.
The insurance industry will also benefit from all these applications with better risk management. Thus, an Israeli insurer offers a satellite solution that locates the connected car and asked to enter a pin code to open and start the vehicle, drastically reducing vehicle theft.
In South Africa, insurers require such solutions for tracking cargo trucks. Incidentally, these solutions would reduce the price of insurance policies for customers because of a risk better mastered and reducing demands for reparation of damage. Similarly, insurance on private vehicles used to check for possible breakdowns defensively, to proactively propose solutions or auto repair in case of problems with the software. Another possibility, which may seem more sensitive; monitoring the conduct and control the manner of driving by the vehicle owner connected.
