The Odometer can be used to provide an indication of a particular value. For example you could easily use it to represent values for a control panel that shows information about a server. An Odometer 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. The figures are also configurable, so it can go from 0-10, or from 0-100. Or if you wanted a specific range, you could have it go from 60-200.