Driving towards a digital, safe and sustainable future
Vodafone Automotive
Giving ambitious vehicle manufacturers, insurance companies and fleets a competitive edge.
Adopting a digital fleet management solution isn’t just about reining in fleet costs or streamlining the business. Although these are fundamental reasons, they’re not the only ones that underline the value of digitalisation.
Connecting multiple vehicles gives rise to ethical and managerial perspectives. We live in a context that constantly calls for companies and people to go for responsible and sustainable options. Technologies have always marked a breakthrough and an improvement in our way of living and working. Digitalisation is not only no exception, but it also drives radical changes. In the mobility space, it promises effects hitherto considered difficult to achieve, despite the investments and efforts by all stakeholders in the automotive ecosystem.
On the manufacturers’ side, we’ve seen the development of increasingly cleaner engines and the introduction of safety technologies and driver assistance systems, such as pedestrian detection, brake assist, or lane keep assist, among others. Governments themselves have requested advanced safety services, such as eCall, and have called for good driver behaviour, with increasingly stringent rules and regulations. Infrastructure administrators insist on more rigorous and timely road maintenance and more accurate control systems.
Nevertheless, connectivity-based services are what will spark a real paradigm shift and give rise to far more effective benefits than the innovations put forward so far. Getting to zero traffic fatalities and drastically reducing emissions harmful to the environment and to people are also expected.
In fact, the optimal achievement of safety and sustainability targets involves acting on prevention – the predictability that something could happen – to eliminate causes. This is the role of digitalisation applied to mobility. It prevents accidents – as it incentivises better driving – and it reduces emissions by showing alternative and less-demanding routes, which are communicated through the data provided by C-V2X technology that connects infrastructures, vehicles and vulnerable road users (VRUs).
This is why fleet managers play a key social role today. By increasing the efficiency of fleet vehicles and reducing operating costs, they provide the opportunity to bring together benefits for both the environment and road users. The people in charge of different functions in the company enrich their targets with concrete and valuable arguments.
It's in this context that organisations with a keen eye to sustainable development and the safety of their employees create a dynamic interaction with their customers. Customers have shown – through their purchase decisions – that they value products and services provided or manufactured by companies that are socially responsible. This relationship is long-lasting and based on mutual trust because it leads to admiration for a brand that takes everyone’s safety seriously.
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We share measurable and proven results with our customers so these can inform their choices and become the starting point for the introduction of product, service and process innovations offered by technology. The communication of benefits – due to their social relevance – is a distinctive element as it drives us to continue along the path to digitalisation. With digitalisation, the most effective results will be fully achieved when a greater number of vehicles take part in this transformation, and the data intelligence produced by the elements of mobility is shared and distributed.
Fleets – which in terms of the number of vehicles on the road are set to increase – can be a stimulus for the entire mobility sector, aside from encouraging debate and accelerating the future. Learn more about how you can improve your fleet operations here!
Graziano Mangiarotti
Head of Product Management & Quality at Vodafone Automotive
Article was published in February 2022 in Issue 55 of Auto Aziendali Magazine.