How AI can reveal more about your fleet's fuel efficiency than raw mpg data

DALLAS—Data. It’s become a transportation buzzword. Fleets using ELDs capture multiple data points on each vehicle, each driver, and each trip. If not handled properly, this data can become overwhelming; if ignored, this rich data is wasted. But when used intelligently and with purpose, data collection is a fleet asset.

With the integration of artificial intelligence, telematics companies are making this data even more valuable.

Isaac Instruments is no different. The company announced an addition to its platform that uses artificial intelligence to compare trucks’ fuel efficiency on an even playing field, here at its 2024 Isaac User Conference.

Measuring accurate mpg

Many telematics companies announced artificial intelligence integrations within their platforms this year. These companies largely use AI to make sense of all the data they collect. Within these spaces, AI isn’t replacing human jobs, it’s simply a timesaving productivity tool, eliminating the need for fleet managers to pore over datasets and generate their own insights.

Isaac Instruments will use AI to help fleets determine which trucks and configurations get the best miles per gallon according to each application. The new feature, announced at the conference, is called Fuel Equivalent and is part of Isaac Instruments’ new AI Lab.

“If you have a truck that returned from a trip at 7 mpg today, without any more information, who can tell me if that was good or bad?” Jean-Sebastien Bouchard, Isaac chief product officer, asked the crowd at the conference.

To understand whether a specific truck is truly fuel efficient, multiple data points are needed, such as the load, the weight, the roads traveled, the kind of weather experienced, the truck’s configuration down its model year, and more.

“With this in mind, we've built the Isaac Fuel Equivalent,” Bouchard announced. “Using AI, we're modifying the mpg. We're adjusting the mile per gallon to account for the load, for the weight, for the driver, so we can compare truck-to-truck performance.”

How does it work?

To accurately compare which trucks perform better in which applications and with what loads, accurate data must be captured. Using AI, the Isaac Fuel Equivalent accounts for those metrics necessary to measure fuel economy accurately.

“The Isaac Gateway measures temperature,” Kyle Niiya, business intelligence analyst at Isaac Instruments, said during the event. “It measures altitude. It measures speed. With the rest of your telematics data and a little bit of math ... we can estimate load weight and road curvature. And, at Isaac, we have plenty of data points on driver behavior.”

That data is displayed within the Isaac AI Lab dashboard, segmented by vehicle data and driver data. It’s displayed on a scale that adjusts these factors and metrics according to a theoretical 10 mpg truck scale.

A 10-mpg truck “vision” is a truck that’s running a light load on a flat road with perfect weather, Bouchard explained.

“What if you could compare any of your trucks on the 10-mpg scale,” Bouchard said, “so that the 6 mpg truck in your fleet ... is actually maybe the best truck in your fleet, and it’s a 9 mpg truck on the 10 mpg scale?”

In the AI Lab Fuel Equivalent dashboard, that 9 mpg figure would be displayed as a 9 mpg “fuel equivalent,” indicating that, while the vehicle’s actual mpg is lower, it performs well when adjusting for load, weight, road type, and more.

Within this dashboard, fleet managers can view these metrics and numbers. They can see the actual mpg, mpg when temperature has been adjusted, and filters for different segments, such as mountainous regions, road type, and light to heavy loads. Fleet managers can view mpg per different trucks by their manufacturer, as well as gain insight for each individual truck’s mpg and which trucks are performing the best per its route, load, and configuration.

“Using vehicle Fuel Equivalent, you can truly identify which makes, models, and configurations perform best in which situations,” Niiya said. “With this data, you can make decisions on when a certain truck should be used, when they should be reconfigured or repurposed, or when they need to be replaced.”

Because drivers also impact a truck’s fuel efficiency, the Isaac AI Lab also features a driver dashboard to show fleet managers the correlation between their drivers’ Isaac Coach scores and their overall mpg.

“With this data, you can estimate just how much fuel you would save based on how much you improve the [Isaac] Coach,” Niiya said.

One Isaac customer got a sneak peek at the Fuel Equivalent platform using data from his own fleet.

“With having different types of equipment models with open deck, super heavy, and all types of things—we've been doing that internally ourselves, trying to compare [mpg],” Cody McClain, VP of safety and human resources at Tucker Freight Lines, said. “Instantly, it’s comparing apples to apples across the fleet.”

Cody McClain of Tucker Freight Lines (left) and Matthew Campbell of Challenger Motor Freight (middle) discuss their first impressions of new Isaac Instruments features with Isaac's J.S. Bouchard.

Why is it helpful?

The AI Lab, with the Fuel Equivalent as its first feature, isn’t just a fun tool to look at interesting metrics. Isaac designed it as a money-saving tool to help fleet owners decide which vehicles to use, replace, purchase, or even which ones to park.

“If there's an economic downturn, you will park trucks,” Bouchard said. “Fuel is a big expense. ‘Which trucks should I park?’ There's an economic boom, you're going to buy new trucks. ‘Which trucks are better configured for the type of work that I do?’ How do you make those decisions? What if we provided a tool that allows you to do this? This is what the Isaac fuel equivalent is all about.”

McClain believes the Fuel Equivalent from the AI Lab will also help him make better equipment decisions down the road.

“I think we'll have some ammunition to negotiate with some of the OEMs,” McClain explained. “We have a great relationship with one of our OEMs, but that doesn't mean we don't want to have something else to have to go into those discussions.”

See also: AI is a tool worth exploring

The Isaac AI Lab

The new Isaac AI Lab platform, available to an exclusive number of Isaac Instruments customers beginning next month, will use data from across the Isaac network to generate metrics that fleets can use to make improvements.

AI allows Isaac to generate more data from trends and patterns that are built across the Isaac platform, Bouchard explained. Eventually, the AI Lab could be used to alert drivers of safety risks in real time, and it could help fleet managers identify drivers that need immediate coaching.

But for now, the AI Lab is open to a small amount of Isaac Instruments customers—those that are “early adopters that really want to push the limits,” Bouchard said.

This initial exclusivity has a purpose.

“We have very good results with the AI-generated metrics that we've generated so far, but we want to make sure that we adapt it to a usable world,” Bouchard explained. “We want to test it out with some early adopters to make sure that the way we present the results, the way we're creating the experience actually works, and it gives the results that we're expecting.”