Odometer charts can be used to provide an indication of a particular value. For example you could easily use them to represent values for a control panel that shows information about a server. Odometer charts indicating how much disk space is used for example, would be more visual than a simple number.
The green, yellow and red areas are configurable, allowing you to add some level of urgency into your figures (as are the colors). The figures are also configurable, so it can go from 0-10, or from 0-100.