Storage and evaluation of Tachograph data since 2007
In the year of 2023, the Tachograph celebrates 100 years. The Tachograph is an instrument developed for the control of legal compliance of a social regulation, a regulation that states that all drivers of commercial transport over 3.5 metric tons must compete on the same terms, not have to work 24/7 with all the risks it entails, and also have a social well being.
In 2006, the Tachograph became digital. Sprung from the digitization of Tachographs, we are Idha Sweden AB, a software company at the forefront with the goal of facilitating the handling of tachographs and legal compliance. For us, DATA does not stand for Do not Ask Try Again, rather the opposite. We think the Italian expression Sprezzatura is an appropriate description for a successful digitization, i.e. to perform an admittedly complex task in an apparently simple way.
Complex tasks will how ever not just disappear, but with the right tools you can hide complexity and simplify the work. Creating tools that simplify work is what Idha Sweden AB does for its customers. Idha Online, our system for checking legal compliance handles in a day information that would take a human being at least 100 years to analyze.
As said, complex tasks do not just disappear, performing a complex task in an apparently simple way requires expertise. Idha Sweden's success can be explained by a perfect mix of computer science, industry knowledge and a large portion of experience. In our latest version of Idha Online, many years of accumulated knowledge are available to our customers, and with its help, our customers know tachographs and legislation as well as we do.
One can of course ask whether the digitization of tachographs has contributed to any sort of improvement, to that question we dare to answer yes indeed. Since we launched Idha Online in 2007, our customers have reduced the number of violations by 90% or more. As a natural next step in the digitization of tachographs, we are now opening up our APIs for customers to easily utilize the value of all their tachograph data directly in their own specific business.
Having said that, we are proud of what we have created and what we have contributed to so far, and we also look forward to what we can achieve in the future.
Karl-Göran Sandström puts his career as a soccer player behind him and is employed at Kienzle in Enskede in Stockholm. Since 1923, Kienzle has manufactured and repaired tachographs and taximeters. In 1971, Kienzle opens a branch in Sundsvall with Karl-Göran Sandström at the helm.
Karl-Göran Sandström takes over the business from Kienzle in Sundsvall and starts KG Sandström AB (KGS), the same year his son Jonas Sandström also starts at KGS. 1993 Mannesmann-VDO buys Kienzle, they keep the existing VDO representative in Sweden but close down all Kienzle workshops. Then KGS embrace the opportunity to start independent tachograph workshops in Malmö in 1993 and in Stockholm in 1995.
The analogue Tachograph becomes digital, drivers' historical driving is now stored digitally instead of on paper charts. The economy major Jonas Sandström together with the computer science major David Norman start Idha Sweden AB to develop web-idha, a web-based system for storage and evaluation of digital Tachograph data. In the same year, KG Sandström also takes over Kienzle's former headquarters in Stockholm.
Version 2.0 of web-idha is released and at the same time changes its name to Idha Online. In the same year, support for remote download is implemented, now you can send files directly from the Tachograph to Idha Online over the mobile network. Instead of manually copying Tachographs and driver cards, file transfers to Idha Online can now be fully automated.
Idha Sweden AB becomes a partner in Drivec AB. Drivec AB provides vehicle information with a focus on economy, environment and safety, the two focus areas are Eco-Driving and Vehicle Health. Today, Drivec AB has world-leading technology for saving fuel by measuring and demonstrating overconsumption as well as training and changing driving behaviour, no other system has such large recurring savings that also works regardless of fuel. Drivec AB's system Vehicle Health measures deviations and anticipates potential downtime and breakdowns. Drivec's hardware of today can be used for remote download to transfer files to Idha Online and in the future there may also be more integrations.
Basically all analogue Tachographs are now replaced with digital ones, and Generation 2, the smart Tachograph is launched. The new Tachograph gets updated encryption algorithms for checking authenticity of data, and it also gets built-in GNSS-positioning.
Version 3.0 of Idha Online is released. Idha Online has received a new interface and large parts have been rewritten, the system transitions from being a monitoring system to a management by exception, where the user is continuously given well formulated tasks to resolve. Idha Sweden AB has more than 15 years of experience with digital Tachographs where a lot of that have been implemented into Idha Online 3.0.
Version 2 of the smart Tachograph was also released in 2023, additional tools for controlling international traffic have been introduced, and it will now be possible to update the Tachographs software instead of physically replacing it.