The new Citroën Relay van — Teletrac telematics is now standard on all Relay, Berlingo and Dispatch vans.

All new Citroën Berlingo, Dispatch and Relay panel vans are now fitted with the Teletrac telematics system as standard, and Citroën recently celebrated the registration of the 100,000th van to be fitted with the system, which was historically an option.

Given that the system is set to become so widespread in UK vans, I thought I should take a closer look at what Teletrac telematics offers van drivers and operators.

Teletrac is part of the Trafficmaster group, the Citroën Teletrac package includes Smartnav satellite navigation and Trackstar stolen vehicle tracking.

It also provides the telematics platform for Teletrac’s optional, low cost, Fleet Director real-time fleet management services.

The latest Teletrac system fitted to Citroën LCVs includes a bigger, higher resolution 5-inch colour screen. This provides greater clarity for the Smartnav map display and the system’s many functions highlighted across the bottom of the screen.

Save 20,000 days per year

Citroën claims that the Teletrac Smartnav package saves the equivalent of circa 20,000 working days per year due to congestion avoidance. During the course of a year, around 4,000,000 routes are downloaded by Citroën LCV drivers. Smartnav Personal Assistants also deal with some 40,000 routing and other queries, including emergency calls.

The Citroën Teletrac system provides significant CO₂ reductions and running cost savings through more efficient routing and congestion avoidance. It also reduces driver stress levels by up to 33%, with an associated reduction in risk and improved safety. In addition, the Trackstar stolen vehicle recovery system results in a near-100% recovery rate for stolen Citroën LCVs – the majority of which are recovered within one hour.

Citroën is the only manufacturer in the UK to offer LCVs fitted with stolen vehicle tracking as standard.  Any Trackstar enabled Citroën LCV can be located within moments of it being reported missing. Once a vehicles is confirmed as being stolen, the Trackstar control centre informs the police of the van’s whereabouts – even if it is still moving – allowing the police to have a more detailed and accurate location of the vehicle in order to recover it quickly.

Cut costs

The Fleet Director option provides fleet managers with a full range of services, including optimised routing on multi-drop runs, live vehicle reporting, two-way messaging and vehicle or driver management reports, all of which are usually shown to be highly cost effective. Vans can also be ‘geofenced’ to ensure, and then prove, that they are being used within a specific area and are not used at weekends or out of hours. The system can also be used to record when vehicles arrive and leave specific locations.

As with most technology in the transport industry, its detractors (usually drivers) say that it’s like having a spy in the cab and suggests that their employer doesn’t trust them, or thinks they aren’t competent.

However, to think like this is to miss the obvious problem: all transport is a cost to businesses — high fuel costs and a competitive marketplace mean that all transport operators need to minimise costs, and in many cases the evidence that telematics saves money is very strong indeed.

Another benefit is customer service: in this day and age, being ‘en-route and out of contact’ simply isn’t good enough: both customers and operators expect to know where their vans — and drivers — are at all times.

We will inevitably be seeing much more telematics in years to come — I have little doubt that telematics and navigational systems will become as standard as radios and electric windows over the next decade, thanks to the benefits they provide.