Platform Science: Managing the Fleet with Technology

The automotive industry is undergoing a tremendous paradigm shift with the introduction of connected vehicles. This connectivity allows sharing of telematics data over the internet for real-time monitoring and customer service with the automaker’s service provider. The data shared from the vehicle may include speed, sudden acceleration and braking, idling time, fuel consumption, coolant temperature, miles per gallon or kilometres per litre, level of coolant, maximum speed, level of engine oil, level of fuel, and distance travelled. Platform Science is a transportation technology provider that empowers enterprise fleets with a unified, user-friendly technology platform. The company makes it easy to develop, deploy and manage applications and mobile devices on commercial vehicles, giving fleets an edge in efficiency, visibility, flexibility, and productivity. The customizable platform offers extensive opportunities to fleets and developers to come up with new solutions as customers’ needs, businesses and industries evolve.

The platform is designed to efficiently integrate the hardware and software for optimal performance irrespective of location. The integrated devices and applications compute the fleet’s real-time data right from the vehicle. The Connected Vehicle Device(CVD) can transform any vehicle into an IoT hub and unify all mobile devices on a single data plan through enterprise-grade IoT connectivity. With all the fleet’s networks combined, the vehicles will always have a strong signal anywhere on the road. It combines on-vehicle apps with cloud-based solutions to keep the fleet running with real-time data.

The Mobile Device Management(MDM) offered by Platform Science connects the fleet’s devices, apps, and data at a distance. The duty status app control ensures that the drivers only use work-related apps while on duty by limiting app access based on real-time duty status. Detailed device health makes getting real-time updates and insights on the devices’ locations, health, connectivity, and data tracking possible. The full-fleet device monitoring feature easily tracks the entire fleet’s device inventory and app releases through customizable reports.

Platform Science’s Telematics is a product that helps customers to streamline their data across the vehicles and devices using the platform that unites the fleet’s information and reporting in a unified location. It allows the users to reduce downtime by identifying the vehicle’s active fault codes without visiting a shop. The Starter Interrupt feature can prevent vehicle theft by safely disabling the vehicle’s ignition until manually re-enabled.

Recently, Walmart announced their partnership with Platform Science to provide Walmart’s private truck fleet of 12,000 drivers with telematics tablet devices. The Platform Science solution will host Walmart’s driver workflow application, NTransit, to lead its customers, warehouses and stores to real-time visibility into its freight operations. “Beyond what technology Walmart is creating, now they can pick from or test other best-in-class solutions from our market and continue to focus on that differentiating value to its drivers and customers,” says Jake Fields, Platform Science co-founder and CTO. “There are solutions for maximizing drivers’ time on the road, weight station applications and navigation technologies. On top of that, Walmart has a long roadmap of the additional enhancements they are going to be able to bring to the market. Having the flexibility to plug and play these different solutions is super-important,” he added.

The company has also bagged many recognitions. Platform Science was named by Fast Company as one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2022, and in 2021, it was ranked second in the FreightTech 25 Awards by industry news leader, FreightWaves. With over 100 million miles already covered safely, their cutting-edge technology paves the way for innovation in an industry where the only way to move is forward.