What is it?
Telematics is an on board diagnostics and GPS tracking tool installed in our rental campervans (across all of our rental brands in Australia – maui/Britz/Mighty Campers), helping to keep you safe on the road by keeping tabs on maintenance and breakdown issues, and providing drivers with helpful information about their surroundings, such as hazards ahead.
How does it Impact Your Driving Experience?
Telematics are a great inclusion for drivers - not only does it improve on-road safety, but it can also make for a much more comfortable and relaxed trip. Here’s just a few ways we’ve seen it benefit our customers...
- Off Road Warnings: 4WD is always a popular way of exploring down under, but going off-road can come with its challenges! With the help of Telematics, Britz 4WD customers can now receive in vehicle alerts about upcoming rough terrain, and recommendations on how to adjust their driving - significantly reducing accident rates in those areas.
- Low Bridge Alerts: There are many low bridges throughout the country (like the infamous Montague Street Bridge and Footscray Bridge). While warning signs advise the maximum clearance height, sometimes those signs appear when you’re left with few options other than a long reversing path! That’s where telematics comes along, with a notification based on the type of campervan, giving you advance warning about upcoming bridges below your clearance height.
- Severe Weather Alerts: In cases of severe weather – be it a bush fire, flood or a cyclone – an alert message can be sent to drivers in the affected and surrounding areas, helping you be aware of events as they arise, and adjust your travel plans accordingly.
- Speeding: With many incredibly long, straight stretches of road in Australia - especially in Western Australia and Northern Territory - there’s a few zones that are a high risk of speeding. By geo-fencing those high risk zones and enabling alerts to drivers travelling faster than the legal speed limit of 110km/h, we’ve successfully reduced the number of high speed crashes in those areas by 70%.
Creating Safer, Happier Journeys
Australia is a safe and wonderful country to visit - and an exceptional place to travel in a campervan. Keeping you safe on the road starts with helping to make sure you’re aware of the local driving rules, and aware of anything in your surroundings that might require your travel plans or driving behaviour to change accordingly - making sure you have a stress-free, unforgettable holiday experience.
With such a successful rollout of Telematics across Australia, we’re now working hard to introduce it across New Zealand by summer 2019 and the USA and UK by mid 2020.