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Car hire software saves London PCO company £75,000 in theft prevention
Coastr’s car and van rental software, powered by telematics and advanced risk management capabilities paved the way for improved security, reduced vehicle recovery costs and increased savings.
Saved over £75,000
in recovered vehicle costs
Improved fleet safety
through advanced anti-theft features
SUNSHINE AUTOMOBILES
AT A GLANCE
Founding Year: 2016
Location: London, England
Fleet Size: over 50 cars
Rental Category: PCO car rental company
USP: Offering a variety of cars and prices, professional, efficient, fast and rewards good drivers.
The Challenge
Sunshine had rather fortunately never lost a vehicle, but the recovery process - and attributed administration - for stolen vehicles was convoluted and long winded, involving back and forth with the police and recovery companies who had no access to a central pool of data, or control.
Sunshine’s fleet operation, prior to partnering with Coastr, mostly relied on time-consuming, paper-heavy manual processes and legacy systems. From fleet location data points to renter information, insurance and pricing information and fleet maintenance schedules, everything was siloed. This brought in a number of challenges with regard to customer service and the user experience. The company was also in need to address one crucial security problem - effective and timely vehicle recovery in the rare instance of vehicle theft.
Time-consuming, paper-heavy manual processes and legacy systems
Comprehensive solution to manage fleet payment and insurance
Effective and timely vehicle tracking system
Ineffective Customer service and user experience
Sunshine Automobiles choose Coastr over competitors
We are the only New-Age Car Rental Fleet Management Software for today and tomorrow
Ghazi AR
Founder,
Sunshine Automobiles,
United Kingdom
“Happy with this collaboration, good product with helpful features.
It is easy to manage all vehicles in the fleet. Helped with the recovery of our vehicles on repeated occasions.’’
The Solution
Coastr utilised and integrated telematics technology in Sunshine’s fleet, pioneered by CalAmp, one of the leading telematics providers in the industry.
Through real-time vehicle tracking and remote immobilisation, we helped Sunshine:
Improve risk management capabilities
Enable real-time vehicle health diagnostics and alerts to improve proactive service and maintenance of fleet
Utilised crash detection and analysis for faster insurance claims processing and dispute resolution
Telematics and installation
Coastr provides a CAN-based telematics unit that is connected to the battery. The On-board diagnostics (OBD) port contained in the vehicle provides us with tracking and immobilisation capability. The vehicle data is received over a 3G connection, and stored in a cloud-based server.
The Telematics Control Unit (TCU) itself is roughly the size and weight of a paperback book. It is designed to protect against heat and vibration, and can be fitted anywhere in the vehicle, including the engine compartment. The exact positioning will depend on the model of the car and these devices are hidden from clear/ direct view to avoid tampering.
Adopting and embedding Coastr into Sunshine’s rental operations has not only digitised their operations making them more efficient, paperless and cost effective, but the team at Sunshine Automobiles is now also freed up from stress and hefty losses due to vehicle theft and increasing insurance premiums.
In addition, we have simplified the Immobilisation process significantly to make it self-serviceable, and easy to use by the fleet operators with the click of a button. This guarantees secure access to permissible users only within the fleet operators’ workforce.
The Impact
With access to integrated connected mobility solutions (including tracking and immobilisation) from Coastr, Sunshine hopes to double their fleet size and expand to new locations. Supported by Coastr’s vehicle rental software, Sunshine Automobiles can now confidently scale their business and operations to achieve their next phase of growth.
Business Outcomes
Saved over £75,000
in recovered vehicle costs.
Reduced losses
Improved fleet utilisation
Improved Customer Service
Although it was unfortunate that Sunshine suffered 3 incidents of vehicle theft, this time they were equipped with a car rental software that saved the day, not once but thrice.
​A Mercedes vehicle worth over £30,000 was stolen, at 11pm, from one of Sunshine’s customers. After tracking the vehicle via the live-tracking dashboard, Coastr jumped into action by safely immobilising the vehicle once it had come to a full stop and worked with the authorities to track down the vehicle, thereby preventing theft.
A customer rented a vehicle that the authorities believed was going to be used for illegal activity. The police contacted Sunshine and informed them of a sting operation to arrest the driver. Within 2 hours, Sunshine had assisted the police by using real-time tracking and driver history to track the car between two cities, and once arrived at a location, the car was then immobilised and the customers arrested.
A taxi driver who was leasing a car from Sunshine was unfortunately attacked and had their car stolen by the assailant. After tracking the vehicle on Sunshine’s live-tracking dashboard, the car was left abandoned, and then recovered to prevent further misuse of the car.
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