The Challenge

A need for better data.

Research conducted by Comdata, a recognized leader in payment innovation, revealed that drivers could have found a lower fuel price on fuel purchases 54% of the time. Comdata believes the best way to optimize fuel spending is to improve driver performance and provide real-time visibility into fuel purchases to allow course corrections as needed. However, fleets did not always have access to fuel transaction data in real time. In addition, customers in small-to mid-sized fleet companies did not consistently have access to sophisticated analytics tools or the personnel needed to utilize them effectively.

Seeking to provide additional value for customers making large fuel purchases, Comdata envisioned an innovative solution to improve driver behavior, better manage fuel costs, and help fleet customers make smarter purchasing decisions.

Comdata partnered with Credera to develop FleetAdvance, which, utilizes real-time transaction data to provide simple, actionable information the moment fuel purchases occur. FleetAdvance presents real-time dashboards and scorecards, analytical views of historical performance, and route planning tools. With FleetAdvance, fleets are able to:

• Set fuel price thresholds and purchasing criteria

• Receive immediate text or email alerts when drivers do not comply

• Track fuel purchasing performance and savings via a dedicated portal

• Utilize analytics to quantify and identify additional savings opportunities

“Our commitment to payment innovation and customer satisfaction in the fleet industry is demonstrated through FleetAdvance,” said Randy Morgan, Executive Vice President of Comdata.

The Solution

Using analytics to discover better insights.

Credera partnered with Comdata to design, develop, and implement a customer-facing enterprise analytic solution that is comprised of real-time, web-based analytics tools. Using a proprietary algorithm, the FleetAdvance scoring topology takes every fuel transaction that is processed and calculates fuel purchase scores by comparing it to all of the other fueling locations options.

By using a score instead of separate individual pieces of data, the customer is given insight to instantly understand the quality of the transaction. In fact, for each transaction that falls outside established score guidelines, FleetAdvance can send fleet managers an immediate email or text message notification. Using this insight, managers can have a meaningful conversation with a driver near the time the problem transaction occurred, giving them the opportunity to educate the driver and prevent future problems.

The challenge Comdata faced was to collect, interpret, synchronize, and use the available data relevant to customers to help them make better purchasing decisions. Because of the volume of data and the need to calculate, consolidate, and present the data quickly, the platform uses Redis in-memory key-value store to make the data readily available to all the components of the solution. This has allowed for very high performance while minimizing the input/output impact on underlying systems.

All fuel transactions can be monitored via a web-based console that tracks purchasing activity and provides key information in real time. FleetAdvance leverages a custom, web-based framework that incorporates the latest design principles and styles, such as single page application with responsive design.

The development team built several views based on what the user is trying to accomplish:

• The FleetAdvance Console view provides real-time visibility into customer fueling spend across an entire fleet with a Google Map view of where transactions are occurring and their current scores. This view is updated in real time and helps customers monitor their fuel spend across their entire fleet.

• The FleetAdvance Opportunity Analyzer view provides customers an analysis of how much money they could save by achieving higher average transaction scores. In addition, the Opportunity Analyzer provides what-if analysis capabilities to give customers insight into not only their potential upside opportunity, but also what it takes to realize that opportunity.

• The FleetAdvance Advisor view helps customers plan routes based on simple origin and destination criteria. The Advisor tool gives customers a capability to see their best bets for fuel stops along their current route. Like the other aspects of FleetAdvance, this view reflects location scores using the most recent data as well as the customer’s discounted price at those locations.

The Results

Award-winning results and innovation.

“Comdata introduced real-time fuel management to the fleet industry in 1981 and again revolutionized the industry with the one-card solution in 2000,” said Morgan. “With FleetAdvance, we are once again setting a new standard for successful fuel transactions in the transportation industry.”

Global Award Recognition – The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) recognized Comdata and Credera’s collaboration for FleetAdvance earning Comdata the 2014 Best Practice Award in the Right Time Business Intelligence and Analytics category. Learn more.

Comdata and Credera’s collaboration produced numerous results:

• Showcases Comdata’s commitment to innovation and trusted, customer partnerships.

• Provides real-time fuel transaction information that assist drivers to make smart, cost-saving fuel transactions.

• Allows customers to analyze “what-if” scenarios in order to calculate the anticipated or desired fuel savings with improved operations.

• Creates a visual view for fleet managers of the fuel spend across their entire fleet.

• Helps customers plan travel routes to capitalize cost savings.

• Influences Comdata’s customers’ efficiency and purchasing behavior for more than 30,000 fleet customers.

• Increases customer value and retention.