Driving safety and productivity with data-enabled sustainable fleets

Millions of people depend on TELUS to deliver reliable, high-speed telecommunications services everyday. With more than 4,000 service vehicles across North America, TELUS sought a trusted and secure fleet management solution that aligned not only with its business goals, but also its ambitious sustainability goals. Discover how TELUS improves productivity, reduces fuel consumption, enhances driver safety, complies with regulations, and supports important sustainability goals through data-empowered technology. 

The challenge

In an effort to simplify fleet management, TELUS leverages its global-leading technology to drive positive change and enable truly remarkable outcomes—however, efficiency is not the only consideration factor. 

As a social capital organization, TELUS sets ambitious sustainability goals such as achieving net carbon-neutral operations, reducing 46% of fleet greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030, and to have 100% of electricity requirements effectively procured from renewable or low-emitting sources by 2025. To achieve these goals, TELUS needed a fleet management solution dedicated to continued delivery of high-quality, uninterrupted service to customers, while maintaining support for TELUS' many sustainability initiatives. 

The solution

TELUS partnered with Geotab to utilize its innovative telematics platform, enhanced security, and data-driven analytics. Geotab processes over 55 billion data points a day, identifying patterns in the data to help customers extract valuable insights. Through the use of accurate and comprehensive data provided by this solution, TELUS is able to validate decision-making, support compliance with government regulations, and align with its overall social purpose. 

“We’re aligned on our overall values which makes it really easy and enjoyable to work with Geotab. They have a smart team who are always willing to help, and we appreciate the strong partnership.”

Leandro Giordano, Fleet Strategy and Operations Manager, TELUS Business

TELUS began implementing Geotab technology in 2018 and today 85% of its fleet runs on the platform. Telematics data helps assess overall fuel efficiency and identify opportunities for reductions in fuel consumption and emissions.

Looking toward a greener future

Vehicles remain the number one source of carbon emissions worldwide—idling wastes money and natural resources. Not only does idling damage vehicles, it increases operational cost and produces emissions that contribute to climate change. To support TELUS’ sustainability agenda, the company uses Geotab data to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-engine idling programs in its fleet. 

TELUS is now piloting the adoption of electric power take off (PTO), through the use of electric motors, powered battery packs. These motors are now powering their bucket truck hydraulic pumps used to operate the boom, eliminating the need to idle the vehicles or run gasoline-powered onboard generators. In addition to this, TELUS is also leveraging Geotab’s fleet industry trends dashboard to identify realistic idling targets by benchmarking against vehicles with similar vocation or by city size.

By using Geotab’s technology, TELUS is able to measure and optimize its fleet operations and reduce its environmental impact. Telematics data validates business decisions by enabling the company to understand true fuel utilization, identify under-used vehicles, and justify the transition to electric vehicles. Fuel costs alone consume upwards of 39% of an organization’s fleet budget. Data-driven solutions to reduce fuel consumption save organizations money while positively impacting the environment. 

For TELUS, monitoring and optimizing fuel consumption not only improves the bottom line, it also supports its sustainability goals. By implementing this technology, TELUS has gained insights into daily usage and costs at the vehicle level, including the ability to predict mileage use resulting in more than 10% improvement in fuel economy, and allows TELUS to predict mileage use and future vehicle replacement needs. 

Telematics data is consistent, comprehensive, and efficient, helping TELUS better understand its fleet and its usage—providing more accurate data compared to self-reported readings. Analyzing GPS data has helped TELUS to better understand overall usage and identify which vehicles offer the most value across its fleet. Through this analysis, 50 under-utilized vehicles were identified and ultimately sold. 

Putting safety at the forefront

Geoff Adams
Fleet & Facilities Manager, Strike Group

End-to-end visibility has simplified and optimized fleet management for TELUS. Using Geotab’s Geofencing feature, TELUS measures turnaround times for each province, identifies vehicles delayed in transit, and provides delivery status updates to the field. Accurate and real-time fleet data also provides peace of mind for both management and drivers. If a roadside incident occurs, the vehicle is easily located and can be tracked on a map to ensure both the driver and vehicle’s safe return.

Hitting the ground running

Geotab’s easy platform implementation and seamless OEM integration enabled TELUS to add the technology to its vehicles and get the system up and running without pausing operations for formal training. Communications to fleet managers along with a few links to Geotab videos proved sufficient to get fleet managers using the platform quickly and easily. 

“Installation of Geotab devices was a breeze. The technology is flexible, integrates with OEMs using the vehicle’s built-in modem, and can scale easily to different fleet sizes. We’re now on dedicated Geotab GO devices, and are taking advantage of an incredible amount of data and insights to help us achieve our sustainability and business goals.”

Leandro Giordano, Fleet Strategy and Operations Manager, TELUS Business

Geotab's telematics solution enabled TELUS to reach its business goals while continuing to work towards its ambitious sustainability goals. Reliable and accurate data has given TELUS visibility on true fuel economy at the vehicle level. This insight incorporates vehicle up-fitting and driving patterns, and helps optimize vehicle replacement strategies. Accurate data has led to game-changing insights from day one, and operational efficiencies are yielding cost savings across the board.

Impacts at a glance

• 85% of TELUS fleet deployed on the Geotab platform

• 50 under-utilized vehicles identified by GPS data

• 10% improvement in fuel economy since 2019

• 10% reduction in costs per kilometre (excluding fuel) by replacing inefficient vehicles

• $0 spent on training time or resources for the Geotab platform

The implementation of this advanced telematics platform and data-driven analytics provides TELUS the support it requires to better its fleet management strategy. This partnership with Geotab will continue accelerating TELUS’ sustainability journey by providing the tools needed to set, measure, and achieve targets.

TELUS strives to make transportation smarter, safer and more sustainable by collaborating with intelligent partners to offer valuable fleet insights, empower safety practices and measures, and efficiently optimize journey planning. For more information, visit ^{telus.com/fleet} or check out our case study to ^{learn how Strike Group saved ~10%} on fleet fuel consumption, maintenance, and wear and tear.