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How Swift Ride Eliminated Fleet Theft with Geotab Keyless
Swift Ride, an Atlanta gig-economy rental company and a Can-Am Wireless partner, now runs a 55-vehicle fleet with zero thefts, 95% utilization and more than $400,000 in annual savings. It does all of this with a team of six people.
Geotab recently published Swift Ride's story as an official success story, and Can-Am is named in it as Swift Ride's implementation and strategic technology partner. Here is how the business went from the edge of closure to a fleet that practically runs itself.
Who Swift Ride serves
Swift Ride rents vehicles to rideshare and delivery drivers who are often turned away by traditional rental companies. Founders Sani Abdullah and Faisal Naveed started the business after seeing gig workers repeatedly denied cars because of credit or risk profiles at a metro Atlanta used car dealership.
Their subscription is a ready-to-work package for drivers on platforms like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Amazon Flex:
A dependable vehicle built to handle 4,000 to 5,000 miles a month
Insurance suited to high-mileage commercial driving
Full maintenance support so drivers stay on the road
The problem: cars that never came back
Before Geotab, Swift Ride was on track to shut down within 18 months. Drivers got the car first and paid at the end of the week, and many simply stopped paying and kept the vehicle, a loss the rental industry calls "theft by conversion."
Theft by conversion cost roughly $200,000 a year
At least 15% of the fleet was stolen at any given time
Delinquency ran at 70 to 80%, costing about $15,000 a month
Lost keys added more than $5,000 in replacement costs
The team tried three tracking providers in 18 months. None gave them the open API access or remote vehicle control the business model needed.
The solution: Keyless access, daily billing and an open platform
Swift Ride rebuilt its rental model around three Geotab capabilities, implemented with Can-Am's team.
Geotab Keyless turns a phone into the car key
Drivers verify their identity and link their gig accounts in the Swift Ride app, pay a refundable deposit, and their phone becomes the key. There are no physical key handoffs, and drivers can pick up a car any time of day.
Billing moved from weekly to daily. Every 24 hours a new invoice is generated, and a missed payment triggers an in-app paywall. If the driver still doesn't pay, vehicle access is switched off remotely.
GO9 telematics protects every vehicle
Double-driving detection: mileage spikes above 5,000 miles flag a car that may be shared with an unauthorized second driver.
Proactive maintenance: engine diagnostics caught a failing gas pedal actuator sensor, and the car was fixed and back in service the next day.
Location insights: heat map data showed where subscribers live, so Swift Ride moved its base closer to its drivers.
Geofencing: a lot geofence starts a reconditioning workflow on return, and a second one alerts the team when a car nears the Georgia state line.
Remote immobilization: when a renter was caught using a stolen credit card, the team disabled the parked car and had it towed back.
The open API powers Swift Ride's own app
Swift Ride's mobile app is built entirely on the Geotab Open API and SDK. Location, diagnostics and Keyless lock, unlock, enable and disable controls all run inside Swift Ride's own branded experience instead of a closed, one-size-fits-all workflow.
The results
Swift Ride now saves more than $400,000 a year and has had zero thefts since moving to Geotab.
Metric | Before Geotab | After Geotab |
Fleet utilization | 70% | 95% |
Share of fleet stolen | 15%+ | Zero |
Delinquency rate | 70–80% | Under 10% |
Monthly delinquency losses | $15,000 | Under $1,000 |
Theft-by-conversion losses | $200,000/year | $20,000/year |
Towing costs | $90,000/year | Saved via Geotab Roadside Assistance |
Key replacement costs | $5,000+/year | Eliminated |
Staff to run the fleet | — | 6 people |
Can-Am Telematics and Wireless handled Swift Ride's implementation and continues to act as its technology partner. In Geotab's case study, CEO Sani Abdullah says "Can-Am is instrumental to our business," crediting our engineers and technicians with fast, detailed answers to technical questions about the Geotab platform.
Through Can-Am, Swift Ride is now piloting Bosch RideCare from the Geotab Marketplace.
It detects smoking and vaping in vehicles, letting Swift Ride apply a $25 fine per incident and turn a damage problem into a deterrent. The company is also exploring Geotab Vitality for safe-driving rewards and using its fleet data to negotiate lower insurance premiums for subscribers.
Swift Ride is aiming for 300 vehicles by the end of 2026, with a waitlist of more than 3,000 drivers. It has already launched a pilot in Australia, managed remotely from Atlanta.
Could your fleet run like this?
Whether you run a rental, leasing or service fleet, Can-Am can help you put Geotab Keyless, telematics and the open API to work the way Swift Ride did. Contact our team to talk through your fleet and see what's possible.
Read the full story, watch the video and download the PDF on Geotab's site: How Swift Ride saved over $400,000 and eliminated vehicle theft with Geotab.
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