WABCO, SmartDrive Systems form alliance

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Updated Mar 28, 2014

WABCO Holdings, a global supplier of technologies designed to improve the safety and efficiency of commercial vehicles, announced that it has formed a strategic alliance with SmartDrive Systems to help fleets to lower fuel consumption and reduce collisions. This new alliance enables WABCO to expand its fleet management solutions to commercial vehicle fleets in North America.

SmartDrive_ActiveSafety_graphic_high-resWABCO and SmartDrive Systems will integrate their products and services. For example, SmartDrive Systems fleet customers have reported collision cost reductions of up to 70 percent after the first year and fuel savings of up to 10 percent, while WABCO’s OnGuard collision mitigation system so far has been protecting customers collectively for more than 6 billion miles in North America.

SmartDrive Systems says that its open and extensible platform integrates information from vehicle systems such as WABCO’s advanced braking and stability control technologies into its offerings in real-time. By leveraging this information, fleet operators have insights into driving events to determine what happened, when and why vehicle safety systems engaged, and the potential root causes of safety-related incidents.

SmartDrive Systems offers video-based driving performance insights and analytics. With the technology platform, the company says fleets can use information to reduce risky driving maneuvers that lead to collisions and drive up operational costs – and sustain those results over time. SmartDrive Systems maintains a database of more than 70 million analyzed risky driving events that power predictive analytics and real-time risk identification.

New products and fleet management services arising from the strategic alliance are expected to unlock more value and information from vehicle safety technologies, the companies say. Anticipated benefits include administrative time savings, fewer cargo compensation claims, lower accident repair costs, better insurance rates and lower fuel bills.

“We are excited to partner with SmartDrive Systems as we further execute WABCO’s strategy to extend our fleet management solutions to commercial vehicle fleet operators in North America,” said Nik Varty, President, WABCO Americas.

“Commercial vehicle fleet operators are struggling to gain value from the significant volumes of data generated by their on-board safety technologies – it’s often fragmented and difficult to access quickly when safety-related events occur,” said Steve Mitgang, CEO, SmartDrive Systems. “By taking advantage of SmartDrive’s open-platform approach and the solutions we will deliver through this alliance, we will provide a unified view of driving information that measures the broadest spectrum of risk. This will enable fleets to quickly understand the nature and potential root cause of their exposure and measurably reduce that risk over time.”

Sales, distribution and customer support for the products featured within the partners’ alliance framework will be provided in North America by Meritor WABCO, the joint venture between WABCO Holdings and Meritor Inc.