On the occasion of the 13th edition of the International Post-Expo exhibition in Hannover, Germany this month, Iveco was awarded the Transport Innovation of the Year trophy. This prestigious award was made in recognition of its fleet management telematics package, Blue & Me Fleet.

Introduced for this year's show, the Postal Technology International Awards are designed to recognise and reward excellence and innovation in the postal industry and the awards are given according to votes received from readers of Postal Technology International magazine.

With Blue & Me Fleet, introduced at the 2008 International Hanover truck show, Iveco  has brought to its customers the state of the art in advanced vehicle utilisation and planning management, an increasingly important aspect in terms of reducing vehicle operating costs and improving the profitable utilisation of the vehicle and driver.

The full customer solution results from a joint venture between the leading commercial vehicle manufacturer, Iveco, and the global leader in fleet management solutions, Qualcomm. The telematics services of Qualcomm are fully compatible with the “Blue&Me Fleet” Onboard Computer Platform and allow the vehicle operator to obtain real-time information from all vehicles equipped.

The Onboard Computer Platform is able to interrogate the vehicle CAN BUS obtaining vehicle related data (for example the fuel consumption, vehicle distance and speed, vehicle usage and other technical information) and tracks the driver identity so that data can be correlated allowing individual driver’s activity and driving style to be known.

In addition, tachograph remote download is available; an interface with the digital tachograph which allows remote authentication and download of the tachograph data (according to the new specification agreed and published by vehicle and tachograph manufacturers), thus avoiding the need for the fleet operator to directly access the vehicle to download these data in accordance with industry legal requirements. The ‘Blue&Me Fleet’ hardware transmits data using the cellular telephone network up the Qualcomm network management system; from there the vehicle operator can access the qualified information via the FleetVisor web portal in his Internet browser. A dedicated integration service allows implementing the data into existing In-House software systems.