Penske Truck Leasing unveils fleet management AI

Transportation service provider Penske Truck Leasing has unveiled an artificial intelligence platform designed to give customers real-time access to fleet management data. 

Penske launched Catalyst AI, a fleet management service for Penske customers that combines AI and telematics with Penske systems and expertise, Tim Haynes, vice president of digital and customer data at Penske, told Equipment Finance News. 

“Catalyst AI is not just telematics information, as we have got other information from our proprietary systems and from our 50-plus years of how to run vehicles and knowing what happens,” he said. “Catalyst is now a combination of telematics data plus our own information that we’re using to help … fleet managers make decisions and optimize how they run their fleets.”

The transportation industry has relied on traditional benchmarking surveys for data collection, but Catalyst AI allows users to view real-time, specific data rather than late, generalized data, Haynes said. 

The AI tool allows fleet managers to “do an apples-to-apples comparison to understand how you’re running a fleet, what makes it up and how that compares to someone else who’s doing something similar,” he said. “Being able to compare and see how you do against that is a game changer, as it allows you to say, ‘I’m running a heavy load across the mountains,’ as opposed to ‘I’m running a light load across the plains,’ so you’re going to have different metrics.”

Overcoming traditional benchmarking

The transportation industry is reliant on traditional methods, with 77% of transportation professionals saying they rely on traditional benchmarking for planning and procurement, according to market research firm Big Village’s Transportation Leaders Survey, which sampled 259 U.S. transportation executives from March 13 to March 20. 

Catalyst AI provides fleets with tools that help them refine operations and compete, Sam Thompson, vice president of customer success and fleet telematics at Penske, told EFN. 

The data “is a point in time and it’s commingled with other fleets that just don’t look like them, so what’s making our capabilities more advanced and more valuable to them is the fact that we are looking at them as a unique fleet, and then we’re looking at other fleets that are similar to them,” she said.

Penske Truck Leasing operates and maintains more than 440,000 vehicles, more than 980 maintenance facilities and more than 2,600 truck rental locations across North America, according to Penske’s website. 

Registration is now open for Equipment Finance Connect, the nation’s only dealer-centric equipment lending and leasing event, which will take place May 5-7 in Nashville, Tenn. Learn about the event and free dealer registration at EquipmentFinanceConnect.com.