• Penske provides transportation services with a fleet of over 446,000 vehicles.
• The company uses AI platforms that predict problems and recommend efficient vehicle repairs.
• This article is part of Build IT, a series on digital technology trends that are disrupting industries.

Penske Transportation Solutions is a leading provider of transportation services, including truck leasing and rental, fleet maintenance, and logistics and supply chain solutions.

Headquartered in Reading, Pennsylvania, the company has a fleet of more than 446,000 vehicles. The size of the company requires highly streamlined and automated workflows within operations, including vehicle maintenance. To achieve this efficiency, Penske relies on artificial intelligence.

Solve costly problems

Vehicle maintenance issues can be costly for Penske and impact the customer experience, says Sarvant Singh, vice president of data and new digital solutions at Penske.

If a truck breaks down miles from its destination, “we have to provide a replacement vehicle,” he said, adding that “the truck has to be towed” and that technicians and spare parts are sometimes not immediately available.

To fix mechanical problems in vehicles, Penske launched a platform called Guided Repair in 2018, developed jointly with technology and innovation company Hitachi. The system uses decades of data Penske has collected about its fleet and implements “prescriptive AI,” including deep learning models, to make repair recommendations, Singh said.

For example, if a driver notices the check engine light is on and brings the vehicle into a Penske repair shop, technicians will hook it up to a probe and download the data. Singh said Guided Repair quickly analyzes the data and generates a recommendation, such as that a specific sensor needs to be replaced.

He said the system, which is now used on most Penske vehicles, has reduced repair times and the number of repeat repairs. It has also helped the company collect real-time data from the trucks, including geolocation, performance metrics and fault codes that identify maintenance issues.

The next step for Penske was to anticipate and respond to maintenance problems before they occur. The company worked with Hitachi to develop Proactive Diagnostics, a predictive model that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to flag vehicles with impending mechanical problems so they can be repaired before they fail.

AI under scrutiny

Proactive Diagnostics, which launched in 2021, combines Hitachi’s “robust data science capabilities” with Penske’s “extensive data sets” to predict when a truck will break down, Singh said.

An external device is attached to the vehicles that collects data in real time, Singh said. The technology uses AI to analyze patterns in error codes and other fleet data and detect problems before they occur, ensuring the trucks are repaired quickly.

The device also alerts customers to potential vehicle problems and automatically sends a service request to a specific maintenance facility to help them schedule service, according to the company.

Singh said the system saves drivers time by helping them avoid vehicle breakdowns and waiting for replacement vehicles, which can be a high cost of ownership for Penske. By quickly identifying problems and scheduling repairs, the technology also allows customers to stay on schedule and meet delivery deadlines.

Proactive Diagnostics is used on about 150,000 vehicles and Penske plans to expand the technology to its entire fleet, Singh said.

The results of an AI-driven solution

Last year, Proactive Diagnostics prevented about 90,000 truck breakdowns, Singh said, and reduced the time it took to repair a vehicle by 15 minutes to an hour.

The maintenance insights generated by Guided Repair and Proactive Diagnostics help technicians work more efficiently, he said. Technicians can accept or reject the information depending on the situation.

“It’s not about replacing humans with machines,” Singh said, adding that AI has been particularly helpful for new technicians learning on the job.

A look into the future

Penske continues to develop AI use cases, Singh said, including developing AI tools that customers can use to analyze their own fleets.

In April, Penske Truck Leasing, a Penske company, introduced Catalyst AI, an AI platform that enables customers’ fleet managers to automatically compare their trucks to other similar fleets to determine their performance based on fuel economy and other metrics. This is traditionally a manual and time-consuming process based on industry benchmarks.

“The transportation industry is being revolutionized by AI,” Singh said, adding that Penske will continue to leverage new technologies to provide a better customer experience and make its work more efficient.