Fleet Management vs Telematics: What’s the Difference?

Telematics is not a part of fleet management. The technology used to gather data from the vehicle, location, speed, engine status, and send it over a network is called telematics. The software and that data, along with maintenance, compliance, driver and cost data, are used to run the entire fleet, and this is what fleet management is. In short, telematics is an input; fleet management is the whole system. Telematics is a component of fleet management, not Fleet Management.

Key Takeaways

• The *data layer* is telematics; it receives and sends information from vehicles such as where they are, how fast they are moving and what they are doing with the engine.
• Fleet management is the whole system; it runs the fleet based on that data along with maintenance data, compliance data and cost data.
• The term telematics is not synonymous with fleet management.
• Telematics doesn’t always need to be part of a full fleet management program, but a good fleet management program relies on telematics data.
• When purchasing, choose whether you are looking to purchase raw vehicle data or a complete management platform or both.

This guide explains each term, demonstrates the overlap and enables you to determine what you really require. To find out more about the technology behind telematics, read How how GPS tracking works.

What Is Telematics?

The term “telematics” combines “telecommunications” and “informatics” and, indeed, telematics doing just that: capturing data from a vehicle and sending it over a network to where it can be used. The field emerged from the vehicle telecommunications research and plays a key role in the development of the connected vehicle standards (such as those being followed by the GSMA and in the spread of cellular IoT in fleets.

The telematics system records data from a device installed in the car, such as GPS position, speed, ignition status, harsh braking, idling, fuel level and diagnostics information, and transmits the information, typically via a cellular network, to a server. From a simple standpoint, telematics systems are the “dots moving on the map” plus the stream of data that flows behind each dot. It can solve problems such as: What is the location where this car is, how fast is it running, and how is it driving.

What Telematics cannot do on its own, is to organize that data into decisions. It takes and sends; doing is another task.

What Is Fleet Management?

Fleet management covers the entire process of running a fleet of vehicles efficiently, including the software that helps to manage them. It’s not just about what’s happening right now, it’s about every vehicle and driver, all through their lifecycle.

A fleet management system usually consolidates vehicle tracking (based on telematics), preventative maintenance, fuel management, driver management and safety, compliance and inspection, dispatch and routing, cost analysis and reporting. Telematics is the raw vehicle data, and fleet management is the database and toolkit that makes telematics—and all of the other data it does not capture—useful to run the operation. It can help you answer questions such as: are my vehicles being maintained on schedule, which routes are the most expensive, am I getting compliant drivers and what is my cost per mile?

Most importantly, information telematics does not touch in a fleet management system: maintenance records, driver documents, fuel receipts, insurance, and job data. Hence, it is the larger one.

Fleet Management vs Telematics: The Core Difference

Telematics is the layer of data collection within a larger fleet management system, with maintenance, compliance, fuel, drivers and cost analysis encompassed by that system.

Aspect	Telematics	Fleet Management
What it is	Technology that collects and transmits vehicle data	The discipline and software for running a fleet
Scope	Individual vehicle data points	The whole fleet and its lifecycle
Core question	Where is the vehicle and how is it driven?	How do I run the fleet efficiently and compliantly?
Typical data	Location, speed, engine, fuel, driver behavior	All of that, plus maintenance, compliance, costs, jobs
Relationship	One component	The broader system that includes telematics
Can it stand alone?	Yes, as raw data	Yes, but relies on telematics for live vehicle data

When a seller refers to the two terms as synonyms, he or she is playing loose with the words. Telematics is data in real-time and fleet management is what you do with it.

How They Work Together

To be honest, the two are not competitors, but complementary. Fleet Management is fed by Telematics.

The process: Each vehicle has a telematics device that gathers location, speed and engine data and sends it to the platform. This stream is fed into the fleet management software, and it all merges with the other data – service history, driver data, fuel, compliance, and more – to create the outputs that a fleet manager uses: maintenance reminders based on engine hours, geofence alerts and speeding alerts, driver scorecards, cost-per-vehicle reports, and route history.

Telematics is the only way to get an accurate real-time view of the vehicles in a fleet management system. Telematics is nothing without fleet management. When connected, the value is displayed: The data layer provides facts and the management layer transforms them into decisions.

Which Do You Actually Need?

The truthful answer to most operations is ‘both’ but it depends on the operation’s purpose:

• You mainly need to know where vehicles are and how they’re driven. Tracking may be sufficient, as may be live location, geofencing, and driver behavior – all of which have been the focus of telematics.
• You need to run the whole operation. You need a fleet management solution that has telematics, but also has maintenance, compliance, fuel, and cost tools.
• You’re scaling. Most platforms support both, and they are able to begin with telematics data and expand to more comprehensive fleet management depending on the level of complexity.

Useful buying question: “Is this product providing me with raw vehicle data or is it a system that will manage the fleet around it?” Many of the platforms which are labeled “telematics” are actually fleet management systems, and vice versa; so check the feature list instead of the label. To compare complete platforms, read best GPS fleet tracking systems and to read about the software in general, what is fleet tracking software.

Where Software Fits In

Telematics and fleet management are fundamentally software-driven and the software you have makes two decisions for you that endure beyond any feature comparison: Where to store your data, and how to pay for it.

While most are cloud-based services, they are all based on the vendor’s servers and charged a monthly fee per vehicle. Others run on their own infrastructure or are self-hosted. The second group is self-hosted AIQ Connect, which integrates telematics with live location, geofencing and engine data with fleet management features such as 60+ reports, maintenance and driver monitoring, and is sold under a one-time license instead of per-vehicle fees. If your operations are sensitive to retaining ownership of the fleet data, or if you need to reduce your costs as you grow, then it’s worth considering; but if a small fleet is looking for an out-of-the-box cloud platform, then there are better options.

To go deeper, see what is fleet tracking software, how GPS tracking works, or the benefits of self-hosted GPS tracking software.

What We See in Real Fleet Deployments

Many fleet operators use the term ‘telematics’ to refer to the whole fleet platform – and in a small operation, this will not usually cause any problems. The difference typically comes into play when the operation expands in scale and requires more than live information about locations and drivers. Raw telematics doesn’t provide the expanded fleet-management workflows that are needed for maintenance scheduling, compliance records, fuel analysis, driver documentation, or cost reporting. Comparing software solutions: Check beyond the product label and you’ll find the operational tools it provides are where the “telematics” and “fleet management” products really differ.

FAQs About Fleet Management vs Telematics

What is the difference between fleet management and telematics?

Telematics is the technology that gathers and delivers the vehicle’s data like location, speed, and engine status. That data is used in the wider concept of fleet management along with maintenance, compliance and cost data to operate the whole fleet. One aspect of fleet management is telematics.

Is telematics the same as fleet management?

No. They are often interchanged, but telematics is the data layer (data collection and data transfer or sending of vehicle information) and fleet management is the bigger picture and software that runs on that data and is associated with all other aspects of running a fleet.

What is telematics in simple terms?

The merging of telecommunications and informatics is called telematics. The act of gathering data from inside a vehicle, such as GPS location, vehicle speed and engine status, and sending it wirelessly over a network to a server where it can be displayed and utilized.

Can you have telematics without fleet management?

Yes. Telematics can be used independently as data source and display live location and driver behaviour. To transform that data into maintenance schedules, compliance logs and cost analysis, however, you need fleet management software on top of it.

Do I need telematics or fleet management software?

If you’re only concerned with knowing where vehicles are and how they operate, telematics tracking might be enough. Telematics is just part of a fleet management solution that must be used if you are managing maintenance, compliance, fuel and costs across the fleet. Both are required by many operations.

Is GPS tracking the same as telematics?

One aspect of telematics is using GPS tracking. Telematics features GPS location – but also collects other information like speed, engine diagnostics, fuel used and driver behaviour, and then communicates all that information. It’s the location piece in particular that’s GPS tracked.

Conclusion

The live vehicle data that fleet managers use is what Telematics delivers and fleet management integrates that data with maintenance, drivers, compliance, fuel and cost workflows. A telematics-based system might be sufficient if location and vehicle monitoring is all they are looking for. For those requiring to run the whole operation, opt for a fleet-management platform that includes telematics.

Try out AIQConnect’s fleet tracking software and discover how telematics and fleet-management tools can seamlessly integrate into a self-hosted platform, or book a free demo to go through it with the team.