CAN bus, or Controller Area Network, is a communication protocol used in different industries, especially in cars and factories. It lets microcontrollers and devices talk to each other directly, without needing a main computer in between.

In telematics, CAN bus plays a crucial role in collecting and transmitting data from vehicles to central systems for analysis, monitoring, and reporting. The telematics device acts like a messenger between the vehicle's computer and fleet management platform. It doesn't change or calculate things, just sends the raw data straight to the server. So, in most cases, what you see on the monitoring software is exactly what's been read from the vehicle's systems through the CAN bus.

​The most common data received from CAN bus connections: