The protagonist of this article isn’t a device - it’s a number. “30%” turns safety into cost savings, and “55%” turns sustainability into fuel savings. What matters isn’t collecting data, but enabling the field to change behavior starting tomorrow. What Geotab demonstrated wasn’t the terminology of telematics or fleet management systems, but a decision-making tool that connects data to operations and moves the front line.

By Sang Min Han _ han@autoelectronics.co.kr
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“Good words end in reports. Numbers move budgets.”
A bottler (a local bottling and distribution company) in South America reduced its collision rate by 30%, cutting annual insurance premiums by about $650,000. Another company reduced idling time over 15 minutes by 55%, lowering fuel costs and CO₂ emissions at the same time. Things that often sound abstract - like safety and emissions - get translated into a profit-and-loss statement.
This is less an introduction to telematics or fleet management systems than a management decision tool. At Automotive World 2026, the company behind those numbers was Geotab. Now pushing into Asian markets including Korea and Japan, Geotab - through Takamichi Takeuchi, APAC Business Development Lead - compressed its platform, device, and AI capabilities into a short session and emphasized practicality: “You can connect it and use it starting the next day.”



A Company Living on 5.7 Million Connected Vehicles’ Worth of Data

Geotab doesn’t stop at “collect → transmit → visualize” vehicle data. It carries that flow all the way into “analyze → insights → on-the-ground action.”
Headquartered in Canada, Geotab has been in fleet management for over 25 years. Its connection scale is over 5.7 million vehicles. In particular, it has expanded its footprint by acquiring portions of large commercial fleet businesses such as Verizon Connect.
Takeuchi noted that Geotab is “engineer-driven,” and that aligns with its “open platform” character. In other words, it’s not simply a company selling hardware terminals - it’s a company that expands through data and software.
Its basic flow is conventional, yet it hits operational reality squarely. A Geotab GO device is plugged into the vehicle’s OBD-II port and collects driving/behavior data via built-in GPS and an accelerometer. With embedded LTE (in a model that includes connectivity cost), data is sent to the cloud, where it’s connected through analysis, dashboards, alerts, reports, and APIs.
More important than the technology itself is the message: “You can use it starting tomorrow.” The real enemy of deployment isn’t technical difficulty - it’s the hassle of installation, connectivity, and day-to-day operations. So Geotab doesn’t turn “connectivity” into a project. Start the subscription, and it becomes operational the next day. The less friction you have at onboarding, the more your operating costs - and the speed of budget execution - change.




Curve logging vs. fixed-interval GPS logging: Even on the same route, it records around meaningful change points to maintain accuracy while reducing data transmission volume.



Geotab’s “One Big Move”:
A Data Philosophy Called Curve Logging

The most technical core is Curve Logging - Geotab’s strength against a simple reality: “If you transmit everything in real time, communications volume explodes.”
If GPS is uploaded every 3 or 5 seconds, you can end up with track lines that look like they cut across roads at curves. Curve Logging, by contrast, “sends less on straight lines and sends densely at meaningful change points - like curves.” In other words, it doesn’t burn bandwidth indiscriminately; it transmits only the points needed for accuracy.
This matters because, as telematics scales, the bottleneck shifts from “sensors” to “transmission/storage/processing costs.” Curve Logging is an approach that structurally reduces those costs. If you want to talk about big data, you first have to solve how to handle data cheaply. Keeping accuracy while lowering the unit cost of data - that, by itself, is where P&L improvement begins.



The Speed of “Open”:
Marketplace · APIs · Third-Party Combinations

Takeuchi described Geotab not as “a system that shows vehicle data,” but as an open platform that can keep expanding by adding what you need. Geotab doesn’t trap incoming vehicle data inside its own ecosystem. For example, it can bring third-party hardware already used in the field - such as AI cameras or temperature/humidity sensors - into the same screen, and it keeps the door open so third-party software such as insurance services, fuel cards, and operational solutions can connect naturally.
The central mechanism enabling these connections is the Marketplace. It’s a channel that lets partner hardware and software be combined on one platform. As a result, customers don’t adopt Geotab and stop; they build a “composable system” by selecting and attaching elements that match their workflows and operational challenges. And because it can integrate via APIs with external clouds and internal enterprise databases, Geotab is used less like a single product and more like an infrastructure component you can plug into and assemble inside your own system.
Here, Takeuchi used a telling phrase: “High accessibility even without an NDA.” In other words, there’s room for developers and engineers to participate. So when Geotab says it’s investing in Korea and Japan, it implies more than sales expansion - it includes local partners, local engineers, and real on-site implementation. The faster you can compose and change, the more the “change cost” of your operating system drops.



Ask Like ChatGPT, Get an Answer:
The Direction of Geotab ACE

What field operators want isn’t “pretty dashboards,” but immediate answers to the questions that matter right now. For example: Which vehicle idled the most last month? Which routes or vehicles have the worst fuel economy deterioration versus last year? Which drivers’ risk scores are spiking? When every question requires building charts and exporting reports, that process becomes a bottleneck.
That’s why Geotab pushed a model where you ask in natural language and the system answers (already available as a beta in Japan). It’s “innovation that reduces the labor of making graphs.” In other words, it targets the core cost of analytics - human time - while increasing decision speed.



Safety: Driven by “Rewards,” Not Penalties

In safety, the message was that safe driving isn’t a vague slogan - it’s a design that changes real behavior on the ground.
First comes monitoring. Driving data and behavior patterns accumulate until “how we’re driving right now” becomes visible as data. Next is benchmarking. Using massive fleet data, Geotab compares your fleet against other fleets with similar characteristics and positions your risk level objectively. When you look only at internal data, you tend to conclude “we’re fine.” Add an external baseline, and the story changes.
Next is scoring. Instead of saying “safe/unsafe” in broad strokes, risky behaviors are broken down into items - hard acceleration, hard braking, sharp steering - and scored so you can see what is pulling the score down. At this stage, safety shifts from “attitude” to measurable driving habits.
Then comes coaching. If you stop at “your driving is dangerous,” the field becomes defensive and the system invites resistance. Geotab doesn’t stop at pointing out risk; it suggests how to raise the score and what direction improvement should take.
Finally, rewards. Takeuchi framed it as: “Punishment creates backlash; rewards create participation.” Drivers can check their status in a mobile app, and reaching certain levels links to tangible rewards such as Amazon gift cards or Starbucks cards. It’s a mechanism that encourages drivers to participate and improve on their own. This is the moment safety stops being a “campaign” and becomes an operational device that reduces cost.
And then hardware gets added. Geotab set a June target for rolling out AI cameras to detect drowsiness, phone use, distraction, and more - raising alerts - and potentially expanding into forward-scene behaviors such as following distance and full stops. In this area, Geotab is also showing direction by combining connected fleet data with video telematics through its acquisition of Surfsight.



Quantifying idle-reduction benefits in cost and CO₂: Before/after metrics.



The Moment You Can See Idling, Savings Begin

Let’s return to “30%.” The South American Coca-Cola bottler case most directly shows that “safety” ties straight into insurance premiums and cost. Sustainability comes down in a similar way.
It’s not “ESG for reports,” but the language of operating cost reduction - and the target is idling. With CAN-based measurements, it leverages real signals such as injector data, engine load, and intake air to improve accuracy.
For example, Schindler ran a one-month PoC with 14 vehicles and introduced a simple intervention: “If idling exceeds 15 minutes, beep.” That alone reduced 15+ minute idling by more than 55%, lowering total idling time, cost loss, CO₂, and fuel consumption together.
To say numbers like 23.39 tons (tCO₂) from idling or “we reduced it by 30%,” the key is knowing how much idling is avoidable. Some idling is unavoidable - such as HVAC while a driver rests. But the idling you can reduce through management is the avoidable kind.
“Instead of penalties, even a simple mechanism - beeping when idling exceeds 15 minutes - changed behavior. Idling time fell in the PoC, and if expanded across the full fleet, it can translate into annual savings.”
In the end, sustainability is not a “declaration.” It’s a number confirmed in fuel and operating costs.


 

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