Europe, Vehicle Telematics

“With the help of Samsara, we have reduced the fuel consumption of the entire fleet by about 0.69 liters per 100 km. With an annual mileage of about 9 million kilometers, this translates into a substantial fuel saving of around 64,000 liters or 92,800€ per year”.

Julian Gumz, Operations Fleet Control Center, Arte Logistik

Standout benefits:

• 92,800€ and 64,000 litres of fuel saved per year

• 50% decrease in safety events within a year, despite an increase in the fleet size by 15%

• Optimal planning and implementation of the successive e-mobility conversion of the vehicle fleet through data insights

• Lower claims rate through preventive accident avoidance and defense against unjustified claims

Arte logistics within the Delog Group cosmos

The Delog Group, with its transport company Arte Logistik, is a strong player in last-mile logistics, the final transport stage to the end customer. Since 2020, the transport and management company has existed in this cosmos. As a lessor within the group of companies, it takes care of the fleet management of the logistics and transport companies. This means that they provide the various logistics companies with vehicles within the Group, ranging from minibuses to 7.5-tonners. As the lessor of the vehicles, Arte Logistik also looks after damage management as well as the fleet-in and fleet-out of the vehicles. Fleet-in means selecting, procuring and integrating the new vehicles into the fleet, and fleet-out involves removing vehicles from the fleet after their useful life and preparing them for general use if necessary. This includes branding the respective providers as well as removing user-specific settings from the vehicles.

In addition, Arte Logistik also equips the vehicles with the technology necessary for logistics providers, such as telematics or ventilation systems. Equipping and provisioning the vehicles usually takes two to three weeks.

A look into the future: sustainability and cost efficiency through technological solutions

In order to keep costs under control and make fleets more sustainable, Julian Gumz from Arte Logistik's Operations Fleet Control Center was looking for a technical solution. Above all, this should enable him to provide an overview of potential improvements and accompany the upcoming transformation of the fleet in the direction of e-mobility. Here, Samsara is important as a technical partner in order to better anticipate the real possibilities. After all, not all routes and orders are suitable for electric vehicles with current technology. Vehicles that cover around 1,000 to 2,000 kilometers in a two-day shift, for example, cannot be replaced by electric vehicles due to their current range.

Before embarking on the transition to e-mobility, Arte Logistik was using an outdated system that only allowed tracking of the vehicles - other technical options such as reading fuel consumption and current service status were not available at all - and after almost ten years in use, it was no longer up-to-date from a technical point of view, especially with regard to the hardware.

In addition, many of the smaller vehicles in the fleet were not speed-limited, which had a negative impact on fuel consumption. To solve this problem, the Connected Operations™ platform and AI dashcams were used to set up individual driver coaching sessions and audible warnings at 130 km/h. In this way, Arte Logistik was able to reduce the fuel consumption of the entire fleet by around 0.69 liters per 100 km. With an annual mileage of around 9 million kilometers, this represents an impressive fuel saving of around 64,000 liters or - with a net price of 1,45€ per liters -  92,800€ per year for the company. In terms of return on investment, the annual fuel savings are already enough to finance the cost of the system alone - without taking into account any other resulting benefits.

Cooperation requirement

Being able to perform simple data exports for later processing was essential for Julian Gumz from Arte Logistik. The company conducted a test phase with an initial five vehicles equipped with Samsara technology, while the existing fleet continued to use the previous system, in order to experience the benefits firsthand. After a short time, Julian Gumz was convinced: "Samsara impressed us in the test phase with a limited number of vehicles."

Conclusive evidence due to Samsara technology

The test phase showed that some of what are known as "safety events" were caused by provocation of other road users and that the drivers often had no other way of reacting in the situations in question. With an average number of 20 to 30 accidents per year, this helps considerably in dealing with unlawful claims payments. In this way, Arte Logistik saves high costs every year in the settlement of claims.

In some cases, the blame (causation of the accident) could be dismissed in its entirety; in other cases, only a partial blame amounting to 15 to 20 percent of the total damage remained. The importance of driver buy-in also became apparent during the test phase, as drivers adjusted or otherwise manipulated the cameras despite prior instruction. Such behaviour can compromise the effectiveness of the entire system. Through further training and a detailed presentation of the advantages of the video material, the skepticism was gradually reduced. In the meantime, the system is well received.

The decision to deploy Samsara technology in all vehicles was followed by three months in which a total of 150 vehicles were equipped with front dashcams as well as IoT gateways. Within a year, Arte Logistik has seen a decrease in safety events of more than 50% - despite the simultaneous increase in fleet size by approximately 15%.

Generating driver buy-in

Starting in the dispatching rounds, the communication cascade was then taken to the drivers and supported by information stickers in the vehicles' cabs. These informed the drivers that their journeys are video-monitored and that these videos serve to prevent accidents. In addition, the Samsara platform also makes it easier to manage the maintenance and upkeep of the fleet. For example, dispatchers do not have to estimate an oil change based on kilometres traveled but can directly view whether a vehicle needs one. Accurate error messages make communication with the workshop swifter and more efficient.

For dispatchers in particular, the Samsara solution considerably eases their workload. When customers inquire about the delivery status, they no longer have to contact the drivers. Instead, they can automatically view the location of the delivery by looking into the system. In addition, the platform enables them to give customers a realistic estimate of how long the delivery is expected to take.

Arte Logistik has used Samsara technology to increase the overall efficiency of its fleet, reduce the burden on stakeholders along the last-mile delivery supply chain, and create more visibility and can prevent high costs in claims through better evidence collection. The company has been able to see significant progress in the areas of safety, sustainability and driver satisfaction.