Having a ClearView into Fleet Analytics

Managing large fleets comes with a lot of responsibility. To build on efficiencies and save money, fleet managers need the ability to control driver spending and be aware of vehicle related purchases. While reporting tools for fleet analytics are essential, the intricacies of fuel purchases and other vehicle activity can be overwhelming and challenging at times. Where do you begin once you receive large volumes of raw data? What do those numbers mean? How can you spot the trends? These questions prompted WEX to create ClearView, giving customers the ability to access and intuitively interact with their vehicle data. With the ClearView application, fleet managers can now explore their data, poking and prodding it until they have a solid understanding of what’s happening in their fleet.

The exploration process usually begins by asking the simple things – who, what, where and when? With this, managers can break out the data by vehicle type, driver, region, and more, to drill down into the transaction detail. But then it goes further by asking more complex and meaningful questions. Elevating the process to the next level to uncover saving opportunities and modify bad driver behavior. ClearView enables this analysis through its “Exceptions Model”, which has built-in models to identify undesired purchase activities. Sometimes transactions are simply out of policy, such as when premium fuel is purchased for vehicles that simply need regular. For some customers theft of gasoline is a significant problem, and this transaction data can help identify fraudulent purchases. The key to the “Exceptions” is to provide customers access to their data in the context of their business.

What makes ClearView special? Consider again the driver who has needlessly purchased premium fuel. This insight is found in a sea of customer purchase data — but simply listing the bad transactions aren’t enough. ClearView picks out the premium purchases and cross referencing them against the manufacturer recommendations for the vehicle.  ClearView keeps track of that driver, looking for trends that would indicate that it isn’t just a one-time slip. If it’s a pattern, ClearView follows through and sends a text message to the driver, reminding them of company policy. This nudge will hopefully change the driver’s behavior, and ClearView monitors new purchases to verify the desired change. ClearView gives managers both the insights as well as the action to implement company policy, and helps them better understand their fleets.

Kurt Thearling is Vice President of Analytics at WEX, where he is responsible for accelerating the use of data and analytics across the company. He has twenty years of experience in analytics and has worked in industries ranging from financial services to biotechnology.