“There’s a revolution happening in this space. It’s starting in commercial, and I think it’s going to spread to consumers,” said Neil Cawse (right), founder and CEO of Geotab during a media scrum at the 2025 Geotab Connect conference. Cawse was joined by VP of Product Management Sabina Martin (left) and VP of Data & Analytics Mike Branch for the opening keynote.
The fallout from the Gardiner Expressway construction in 2024 was a seminal moment for Geotab. The traffic congestion and productivity losses were significant but anecdotal — until Geotab was able to quantify that rush hour times had increased by more than 230%.
“The day we published that; all hell broke loose. Every media outlet came to the offices; there was a big political hoo-ha,” recounted Neil Cawse, Geotab’s founder and CEO. “We never had such a big marketing event in our lives.”
That data was a motivator to get CA$73 million more into construction to narrow the gap to completion, said Cawse during a media scrum at the 2025 Geotab Connect Conference.
As more vehicles become connected, the power of telematics data to solve big problems is being revealed in countless new ways that even extend beyond the vehicle. That was one of the themes of this year’s conference, which took place Feb. 24-27 in Orlando, Fla.
I think this necessitates a new acronym — Data2Everything (D2X).
There are plenty of “Vehicle to Something” acronyms: vehicle to vehicle (V2V), infrastructure (V2I), cloud (V2C), grid (V2G), pedestrian (V2P), network (V2N), and everything (V2X). But as far as I can tell, D2X isn’t yet a thing.
Consider D2X as an overarching term for how data is being leveraged beyond the vehicle in more ways than we could have imagined even five years ago.
Data for Urban Planning
Municipalities’ ability to use telematics data extends beyond solving traffic construction to freight corridor planning, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and the strategic development of services in a geographic area.
Municipalities can also use the data on public websites to keep citizens informed of congestion.
This isn’t a new phenomenon, but it’s starting to accelerate as more vehicles become connected. This ability is not intrinsic to Geotab, but with 4.7 million vehicles on the platform across the globe, the data has greater power.
Data for Driver Wellness
Data use extends into a holistic view of driver wellness.
Geotab’s new joint venture with Vitality, a global behavioral science firm, uses telematics data and AI to promote safer driving based on drivers’ predictive collision risk scores.
The program uses a new predictive risk model that takes traditional safety scorecard factors like harsh braking, cornering, acceleration, and speeding.
It then brings additional context by analyzing driving behaviors, collision data, and past trends to benchmark drivers operating in similar conditions to scientifically understand the risk factors. Drivers are assigned a score to predict the likelihood of getting into a collision.
That new risk score is used to incentivize behavioral change, which includes other aspects of wellness such as measuring exercise and healthy habits. Drivers accumulate and redeem points to buy products and services from major brands in an online store.
The data can positively affect insurance premiums, vehicle damage costs, and driver retention. “Behavioral change is not just isolated to how safe you are on the road,” Cawse said. “We’re talking about other behaviors that can lead to better employee welfare.”
Data from OEM-Embedded Modems
Geotab (and other telematics providers) have been collaborating with automakers to use OEM-embedded modems instead of installed devices.
Though data quality varies by manufacturer, it has improved, Cawse said. According to Geotab, about 240,000 units out of 4.7 million use a factory-installed OEM device.
While the OEM modem reduces a major installation hassle, automaker partnerships involve deeper integrations with vehicle ADAS data, which supplements safety scoring.
This is demonstrated in Geotab’s new GO Focus video telematics system. The system purposely avoids the driver-facing camera for privacy’s sake. However, it can ascertain risk by other ADAS-based methods, including following distance, a leading indicator of risky driving.
Data is now extracted from OEM modems embedded in off-road and stationary equipment used in construction, agriculture, and mining.
Data for Sustainability & Compliance
Geotab’s CARB Clean Truck Check is a system that automates emissions verification in California to help fleets avoid penalties. A partnership with Bosch is allowing richer insights into EV battery health diagnostics to improve resale value and long-term cost management.
Geotab’s new Sustainability Center takes fleet emissions and fuel consumption data to identify opportunities to reduce a fleet’s carbon footprint.
Data Unification for Holistic Business Decisions
Telematics data is being integrated into data visualization tools like Power BI and Tableau. Fleets can merge Geotab telematics data with financial, HR, and operational data for cross-functional decisions.
For example, a company can overlay fuel consumption trends with driver shift schedules to find cost-saving opportunities. Or a delivery fleet can connect route data to sales reports to optimize delivery schedules based on demand.
Beyond Fleet, into Consumer Applications
New solutions multiply when a telematics system’s sandbox is opened up to third parties.
In Geotab’s case, that happens through open APIs and developer access, hardware expansion options via the IOX operating system, and an easier system for fleets to order products through the Marketplace. (Amazon, anyone?)
Data to Everything — D2X — will inevitably expand beyond fleet.
“There’s a revolution happening in this space. It’s starting in commercial, and I think it’s going to spread to consumers,” he said Cawse in the scrum.
“I think this is the new world order,” he said. “Now, you can scientifically prove that if (a driver) speeds more than five kilometers an hour above the speed limit or if (the driver’s) following distance is too close, this is how much risk is increased. And we can take real steps towards reducing risk, as opposed to hypothetical, because we can test it on all the data.”
