Features
27 May 20

Post COVID-19 strategy: Geotab and Webfleet Solutions chart mobility recovery

Commercial transportation activity can and should be used as a key indicator of economic health, say the telematics leaders.

A crisis sometimes leads to collaborative projects in the interest of the business and fleet community. Vehicle telematics and IoT technology leaders Geotab and Webfleet Solutions are joining forces to launch a new commercial mobility recovery dashboard. In practical terms, they are putting aggregated and anonymised data together from over 3 million connected vehicles around the world to help visualise the impact of COVID-19 on the commercial vehicle activity.

By combining their data analytics, Geotab and Webfleet Solutions want to provide a greater level of insight that can help the decision making of businesses and governments and support strategic recovery efforts as the lockdown measures are progressively lifted. The data come from a wide array of vehicles, including last-mile delivery vehicles, long-haul heavy trucks and emergency vehicles.

Examining commercial vehicle activity across countries in Europe and North America, including USA, Germany and UK, the dashboard provides insight into the movement of essential commercial vehicles throughout the two continents. Additionally, users can leverage the dashboard to understand how specific industries have been impacted, such as construction, business services and transport logistics. Commercial transportation activity is measured weekly against pre-COVID-19 baseline levels to provide an indicator of the state of the industry.

Bigger drop, but faster recovery in Europe

The Commercial Mobility Recovery Dashboard shows that commercial vehicle activity in Europe dropped as much as 36% during the pandemic. In North America, the decrease was limited to 20% at its lowest point. The positive news is that between May 18 and May 20, commercial vehicle activity on the Old Continent had bounced back to 86% of its normal activity levels while commercial vehicle activity in North America (May 19 - 22) was at 90%.

Interestingly, the dashboard shows faster recovery rates in Europe, with commercial vehicle activity increasing more rapidly from its lowest point compared to North America. The increase in Europe is also steady, with an growth of 4.6% based on activity levels from May 11-15 to May 18-20. In North America, commercial vehicle activity grew by 2.2% over the same two week period, excluding weekends and bank holidays.

The UK has witnessed some of the lowest levels of commercial transport activity in Europe compared to baseline, particularly since March 23. The country has been hovering in the 50-60% range, and as of May 22 commercial transport activity still only sits at 65%.

Indicator of economic health

“As industries, businesses, countries and cities begin to explore and enact their post-COVID-19 strategies, commercial transportation activity can and should be used as a key indicator of economic health,” said Neil Cawse, CEO, Geotab. “Together with Webfleet Solutions, we are uniquely positioned to leverage and analyse our data for the greater good and provide deep, data-driven insights like never before for our collective customers and communities alike. This dashboard not only serves as a tool for COVID-19 recovery efforts but reflects the power of connected vehicle data as an essential tool to support unified, global recovery efforts across oceans, borders and industries.”

“As the world faces unprecedented challenges, it is now more important than ever to embrace open collaboration that supports our communities,” said Thomas Schmidt, CEO, Webfleet Solutions. “Partnering with Geotab on this joint initiative not only brings together two leaders in the fleet management space but enables us to provide deeper data-driven insights into the current economic health of countries across Europe and North America. This will not only help support our customers to get their businesses back on the road but also governments and decision makers as they plan this new path to recovery.”

Starting next week, the dashboard will provide weekly updates on the state of commercial transportation activity across both Europe and North America for the foreseeable future.

Photo credit: Shutterstock, 2020
 

 

Authored by: Dieter Quartier