Safaricom Successfully Trails Smart Vehicle Tracking System at Classic Rally

Nairobi, February 21^st, 2022… As winners of the 10th edition of East African Safari Classic Rally celebrated their victory this past weekend, the region’s biggest telco, Safaricom was revelling in their own triumph from the 9-day event. This follows a fruitful pilot of their IoT (Internet of Things) powered smart vehicle tracking system.

By installing smart sensors in two rally vehicles which continuously relayed data to a connected digital platform, Safaricom was able to prove the resilience, elasticity and ubiquity of its telematics smart tracking system which provided information on speed and location of the cars during the entire rally.

“We set out to prove the robustness and the capability of our telematics platform by deploying it in the most extreme conditions and the nine-day East African Safari Classic rally covering up to 5,000km provided the best environment.  The platform was able to track every second of movement of the rally cars and give their exact locations in time with precision. The pilot is part of our journey towards becoming a technology company and providing IoT solutions such as the one we piloted is part of this commitment”, said Peter Ndegwa, CEO, Safaricom.

The telematics solution was installed on Raaji Bhraji’s Ford Mark 1, 1969 and reigning African Rally Champion Carl 'Flash' Tundo’s Triumph TR 7.

The Telematics solution integrates with the vehicle’s on-board computer, collects information on several parameters that are accumulated and recorded at the end and start of each trip. This provides insights into journey duration, vehicle speed, route information, fuel consumption and driver behavior.

“The smart tracking platform is built on a reliable cloud platform which is highly elastic and scalable to accommodate storage of all the data from all trips. This allows one to retrieve all information in a visual format, of any trip finished”, added Mr. Ndegwa.

The solution also allows for visualization of information relating to vehicle performance and efficiency, vehicle status and driver behavior; providing key information to better manage any fleet.