TraffiTech (Traffilog)

 

Harnessing the power of the Internet of Things (IoT) doesn’t do much good for companies unless they find a way to integrate, analyze, and learn from the massive amount of data coming into their systems every day.  

That’s why when TraffiTech began its search for a business intelligence (BI) and analytics solution in 2011, executives had one requirement that stood out from the list: they wanted a partner with the back-end horsepower to process millions of rows of data in just a few seconds.  

"Everything we do in mobility is about big data and what we call rich data,” says Nicolai Ingemann-Paulsen, CEO of TraffiTech. “Every day, we get millions of data points from our cars. TARGIT helps us turn big data into rich data. We have clients within many different industries with unique data needs. TARGIT is one of the best solutions because it’s flexible and still able to handle that big amount of data. Furthermore, you don’t need a technical background to use TARGIT, and you can learn it quite quickly. That’s a strength compared to other BI tools out there.”  

 

Photo: Nicolai Ingemann-Paulsen, CEO of TraffiTech

Before TARGIT, TraffiTech spent hours processing data and manually sending out thousands of reports to customers across the globe. Now, they rely on TARGIT to speed up data processing and deliver the right reports to customers on their preferred schedules.   

TraffiTech’s Founder Karsten Hjorth explains why the data TraffiTech surfaces is critical for customers: “I like to see that we can make a difference, that we can use the data we collect from the vehicles to change driver behaviors. We’re committed to helping our customers save money by reducing fuel, avoiding accidents, and improving vehicle maintenance. All of this ties back to safety because when you are driving more economically, you also drive safer.” 

TraffiTech sends reports to roughly 40,000 people in mainland Europe and 20,000 more in the UK every month. Each organization they work with has its own reporting requirements and a unique company identity that the reports need to reflect. TARGIT allows TraffiTech to customize reports to customers' needs and then use scheduled reporting tools to deliver reports and updated dashboards automatically.

 

“We mainly use BI for scheduled reports, and in this aspect, TARGIT is simply the best,” says Karsten. “We have tested and tried other options over the years, and TARGIT still proves to be the best.” 

Most importantly, TARGIT's dynamic dashboards and customizable KPI Objects ensure data is delivered in a visually appealing, digestible format that everyone from drivers to managers to executives can easily understand.  

“TARGIT is very important for us because data is not worth anything when it's in the database on a server,” Karsten explains, “It allows us to share the data graphically, so people without a university degree can easily understand it. Users can see when a trend is going up or down, or how their performance compares to other colleagues, all without reading through complex strings of numbers.”  

 

 

Modernizing the Reporting Process: From Hours to Minutes 

 

As TraffiTech continues to grow, so does the volume of data they're presenting to customers on a daily basis. To support its data processing needs, the company recently moved to TARGIT's InMemory database, which allows data scientists to process data very quickly while improving latency – data imports that used to take hours are now completed in five or six minutes.  

TraffiTech began considering TARGIT InMemory when they moved from SQL to Timescale. Business leaders knew they needed a more modern database to support the data coming into TARGIT and subsequently going out to customers. After learning that TARGIT's standard InMemory solution wasn't compatible with Timescale, the TARGIT team immediately set to work developing a custom solution. 

Karsten recalls, "When we approached TARGIT about the move to Timescale, they told us, 'We've never tried that one before, but of course it can be done.' TARGIT assisted us in completely rebuilding the data warehouse and completing the new data modeling. Six months later, we had a working solution."   

Karsten shares that switching to InMemory has also significantly reduced TraffiTech’s software costs: “Well, changing to the new InMemory solution has saved us between €20,000 and €25,000 every single month in hosting costs and software licenses.” 

TraffiTech’s end-users are also enjoying the benefits of TARGIT’s InMemory technology. While they haven’t seen any outward changes in the interface or content of their reports, they now experience virtually no load time when viewing BI dashboards. Icons and KPIs are loaded instantly, giving them a seamless, lightning-fast experience.

TraffiTech also implemented different types of incremental loads in TARGIT, which enables them to turn real-time data into live dashboards that customers can instantly drill down into.   

 

Equipping End-Users with Digestible Data Insights  

 

TARGIT also plays a significant role in TraffiTech’s daily operations, especially for Data Scientist Steffi Hjorth. She works closely with the TARGIT team to manage the back end of TraffiTech’s BI solution, but she’s also responsible for designing many of the reports for TraffiTech’s customers.

Steffi explains, “We put all of our clients’ key performance indicators into simple graphs and comparisons that allow users to drill down to the root of where each data point is coming from, take the right follow-up actions, and allocate where there is room for improvement.” 

Photo: Steffi Hjorth, BI & Data Specialist at TraffiTech

More specifically, Steffi relies on the flexibility of TARGIT to deliver reports according to her clients' needs. TraffiTech works with various customers in various industries, so Steffi can't always use TARGIT's default KPI objects to accurately communicate key data points. 

"I can design my own KPI objects and make them behave based on the data within them." Steffi often uses images and SVGs to turn data into visual insights for drivers, like using smiling faces or green icons to show positive performance or integrating company logos into imagery throughout each dashboard.

"The flexibility of building these KPIs ourselves allows us to deliver reports to our clients in a way that's easy for them to understand." 

Steffi and her team work closely with TARGIT to create new solutions, overcome roadblocks, and refine workflows. TraffiTech and TARGIT employees often bounce ideas off each other or update one another on changes happening in their own products. This helps TARGIT identify potential enhancements inside Decision Suite while giving TraffiTech the opportunity to surface new ideas or requirements.  

TraffiTech and TARGIT’s collaboration ties back to TARGIT’s dedication to caring for customers, ensuring a mutually beneficial partnership with every organization using our BI solution.

The value of this partnership is directly reflected in TARGIT's continuous evolution of its end-to-end BI platform. According to Karsten, "Every single time a new release comes, I hear from my team that they see their fingerprints in the release, that our requests are listened to and built into the platform." 

What's more, TraffiTech also takes inspiration from other users through the TARGIT Community forum. "Even though I've been working with TARGIT for over 10 years, I still have new questions and challenges coming up," Steffi explains. "It's great to have a community like the TARGIT Community where I can pop in a question and find a solution 99% of the time." 

 

Looking to the Road Ahead 

 

With the new InMemory solution up and running, TraffiTech is now exploring ways to make TARGIT data even more accessible and insightful for customers. One possibility is to embed TARGIT dashboards directly into the front end of TraffiTech’s fleet management solution.  

"We're looking into embedding the TARGIT dashboards into our own front end through iFrame," Nicolai shares. "This will enable our clients to see the data instantly and drill down into it." 

As both TARGIT and TraffiTech continue to evolve, Karsten foresees a successful future ahead for their partnership. “My hope is that we can continue the partnership more or less the way that it is and has been for the last 15 years.”