E-Smart to Supply Western Express Fleet With Geofencing
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SAN DIEGO — E-Smart, an Indiana-based technology company, said it has contracted with truckload carrier Western Express to equip the entire Tennessee-based fleet of more than 3,000 power units with E-Smart’s Advanced Driver Assistance System and geofencing software, which uses fuel management to control vehicle speed.
Mathieu Boivin, CEO of E-Smart, made the announcement on Oct. 6 at American Trucking Associations’ Management Conference & Exhibition, held here from Oct. 5-9.
E-Smart, with offices in Indianapolis and Montreal, develops and manufactures software designed to improve vehicle safety and reduce fuel consumption. Its technology relies on GPS to control acceleration and deceleration, but does not control braking, Boivin told Transport Topics.
Boivin said the ADAS Western Express is installing manages the maximum speed a vehicle can reach based on data about the posted speed limit for the road. It also uses geofencing to protect drivers from high-risk locations, such as low bridges, by restricting the speed the vehicle can achieve as it approaches such obstacles, Boivin said.
In a video E-Smart showed during a media presentation, Western Express safety director Daniel Patterson said the technology in testing conducted by the fleet slowed its trucks as they approached low bridges, a scenario Patterson said has been an occasional issue for the company. That testing, part of a pilot program with 111 power units, concluded in May, Boivin said.
Western Express said all of its trucks will be outfitted with the ADAS technology by year’s end. Patterson noted in a statement that instances of bridge strikes and speeding have declined since the company adopted the technology.
Boivin discussed another E-Smart technology called “load-based power management,” which curtails fuel consumption to slow trucks down and save fuel when trailers are light, and increases fuel use when they’re loaded.
The company has 25 employees in Indiana and Canada, and its technology is in use by 20 fleets, Boivin told TT.
Western Express, based in Nashville, Tenn., has more than 3,600 employees worldwide. It ranks No. 52 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America.
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