During Florida conference Geotab Connect, Roads and Infrastructure sat down with Geotab to discuss the future of data and communications in Australia.
Geotab Connect, an annual event hosted in Florida by connected transportation solutions providers Geotab returned from 25 to 27 February 2025, drawing telematics and fleet management professionals from around the world.
For more than 20 years, Geotab has invested in ground-breaking data research and innovation to enable partners and customers to transform their fleets and operations. This is on top of providing telematics, vehicle and asset tracking solutions to over 55,000 customers in 160 countries, including Australia.
Connecting to over 4.7 million vehicles and processing more than 80 billion data points a day, Geotab aids its customers in increasing productivity and achieving their sustainability goals.
Over three days, Geotab Connect united industry leaders to explore the future of data-driven mobility, from AI-powered telematics, to innovations designed to make roads safer and fleets more efficient.
The event was also a platform for major announcements, with Geotab outlining its vision for the evolving transport and logistics sector.
Solutions Engineering APAC for Geotab.
Speaking to Roads and Infrastructure, Chris Martin, Senior Manager, Solutions Engineering APAC for Geotab, says just like many other industries, fleets within the roads and infrastructure sector must be utilised as efficiently as possible.
“Often, these are field service fleets which send multiple types of vehicles to construction sites,” he says.
“Whether they are service vehicles transporting people or tools to a job, or machinery working on the road, all of these vehicles face common challenges.”
These challenges include downtime on machines and significant fuel consumption, both of which translate to increased costs.
“If a machine cannot complete its task, it leads to more traffic control, extended project timelines, and missed deadlines,” he says.
“Fleet management and telematics systems play a critical role in these industries by tracking vehicle activity, identifying potential issues, and ensuring that information reaches the right systems.”
One of those telematics systems is vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication, a two-way exchange of information between cars, lorries and buses and traffic signals, lane markings and other smart road infrastructure
Martin says a key factor in advancing V2I communication is ensuring vehicles are connected and generating data to support these systems.
“Traffic management, government planning, and insights into congestion and vehicle types on roads are all crucial from a regional perspective,” says Martin.
One example in Australia is the heavy trucking industry, where connected vehicles provide data to regulatory bodies through programs like Transport Certification Australia (TCA).
Martin says these programs help operators gain better road access by connecting their vehicles, ultimately benefiting both the industry and road managers.
“Operators get improved access, while road authorities gain valuable data to plan budgets, monitor road usage, and prioritise spending,” he says.
“This could mean upgrading a particular bridge or investing in specific road segments, improving productivity for operators and delivering more effective infrastructure planning.”
In addition to productivity being a driving force in the industry, safety is a major priority, and one that businesses are always looking to improve in their operations.
According to the Australian Road Safety Foundation, despite being less populated areas, rural and remote roads accounted for almost two thirds of the 2023 road toll.
Martin says connected vehicle technology has already been in place in rural and remote areas of Australia, where safety on roads is a priority for the Federal Government.
Related stories:
- Geotab introduces work order management and fault code enrichment to help fleets reduce cost and downtime
- $68M to modernise Moss Vale Station
- New Seymour-Avenel Road bridge now open
This technology is not just about vehicle incidents, but also for individual staff members working on isolated environments.
“Someone could arrive at a site and experience a fall or another emergency, and the ability to send an alert is crucial,” says Martin.
“At a commercial fleet level, this technology has been in use for a long time, particularly in industries like mining and oil and gas, where many workers operate in remote areas, sometimes alone.
“The safety benefits are well established for these areas, one example being the use of satellite backhaul. Notifications can be sent when an incident occurs, whether it is a rollover, an impact, or a lone worker pressing a duress button.”
Martin says connected vehicle technology has a huge role in improving safety for remote workers on rural roads, and while it is already in use, advancements in satellite connectivity will make it even more reliable and cost effective.
Another challenge often faced by rural areas across the country is connectivity.
Martin says in populated areas, coverage is generally good, however much of the road network extends into regions with little to no connectivity. From a road and infrastructure perspective, real-time connectivity is important, but it is not always essential.
“Data can still be collected and transmitted once a vehicle returns to coverage. As long as the information reaches the right systems, it remains valuable for planning,” he says.
“For real-time applications, satellite connectivity is an option. New low Earth orbit satellite constellations, such as Starlink, are making this technology more accessible.
“Mobile carriers are also moving towards satellite-based cellular coverage. While it is not fully available yet, it is on the horizon, which will significantly improve connectivity in remote areas.”
Altitude
Currently, commercial fleet vehicles make up a small portion of the vehicles on the road. Martin says the more that can be connected the better. At the forefront of this, is Geotab with its Altitude platform.
“As more Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) produce vehicles with built-in connectivity, that will help drive adoption,” he says.
“Regulatory frameworks also need to be in place to integrate this data into broader systems.”
Altitude by Geotab provides reliable and contextualised mobility insights for public and commercial sector decision-makers to gain a complete understanding of movements across road networks.
This enables customers to achieve improved planning capabilities as well as better financial outcomes, without the challenge of finding trustworthy and usable data sets.
With 4.7 million vehicles connected and reporting daily, Geotab has an unprecedented dataset to analyse vehicle movements and identify patterns, which Martin says makes Geotab a leader in the connectivity space.
“It is exciting to see how Geotab can leverage its vast data set to provide insights into how road networks are used,” he says.
“We are fortunate to have access to such a rich source of information and to be able to use AI which plays a key role in this. It is not just about having the data but being able to analyse it and uncover patterns.”
Martin says identifying trends in road usage, vehicle movements, and conditions, such as the impact of time of day or weather on certain events, is “incredibly powerful.”
“If we can train models to recognise what a collision looks like and the conditions leading up to it, that has huge potential for improving safety and efficiency,” he says.
This article was originally published in the April edition of our magazine. To read the magazine, click here.
.png){kind=small}
.jpg)
