ERM Advanced Telematics Targets Car Sharing Market

ERM is supplying car sharing companies with telematics products from its StarLink products line, with optional add-on features and required adjustments such as wireless communications technologies like Bluetooth, WiFi and RF. Other complementary add-on products from ERM's rich production lines can be tailored to meet a whole range of needs of this fast-growing automotive sector.

As part of the solution ERM, allows car sharing companies to identify subscribers and permit them to drive a car at a given time. Moreover, the company’s solutions that are used in car sharing vehicles give the companies the ability to control and immobilize a vehicle to prevent any unauthorized driver from using it.

Another requirement of car sharing companies is to monitor how drivers actually use the vehicles. In this regard, ERM developed advanced driver behavior monitoring solution on the basis of sensors and CANBUS integration. This allows a highly accurate monitoring at all times of both the vehicle from technical aspects and the driver’s activity during his or her use of the car. In order to add value to the solution, ERM supplies various additional driver alerting solutions based on audio and visual alerts, to educate the driver during the trip.

By using these systems ERM provides car sharing companies with real time information on the condition of the vehicle, as well as of the driver while he or she is actually at the wheel. This allows the headquarters of the car sharing companies a means of dealing in a suitable way with unsafe drivers.

Additional values that ERM offers fleet management customers such as car sharing fleets include enabling the customers to identify accidents when they happen and lend emergency assistance to the driver in extreme scenarios. The solutions include various emergency button options that can be integrated onto the car's original dashboard or as a separate button. On top of this, post-accident analysis is possible using a special blackbox technology that keeps the data prior to and after the accident and can be uploaded to the servers .

The need to manage fuel is vital for car fleets in general and for car sharing companies in particular. ERM's technologies enable reading the status of the fuel in each given moment, help remind the driver to fill the tank when necessary and give him or her recommendations on petrol stations in his or her route. The technology can also detect pilferage and refueling events and can alert based on them.

According to new research by Global Market Insights, the global car sharing market is expected to reach the $11 billion mark in revenues by 2024. The size of car sharing fleets and the number of subscribers worldwide is expected to increase on average at a 20% annual rate (CAGR) by 2024. American Automobile Association (AAA) figures estimate the average annual maintenance cost of a car sharing vehicle at $8,700.

“Car sharing companies operate in a high risk environment," says Eitan Kirshenboim, CMO at ERM Advanced Telematics. "Minimizing these risks while creating a comfortable experience for the subscribers are vital for these companies, and this is exactly what ERM offers”. He adds that “the kind of solutions ERM is offering give car sharing companies a wide spectrum of key functions, all in real time – from identifying the subscriber, through driving behavior analysis and vehicle diagnostics, up to personal feedback to each driver and grading each driver for future risk management."