iTECH: Fleets Expect More from Asset-Tracking Systems

This story appears in the August/September issue of iTECH, published in the Aug. 27 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Trucking companies once were happy if an asset-tracking system could simply identify a truck’s location on a map. Today, carriers expect much more from their systems — and they expect the data the systems collect to integrate seamlessly with the carrier’s existing management systems, technology developers and fleet executives said.

Henry Popplewell, Skybitz’s senior vice president of sales, said he’s seen that shift since the Herndon, Va., company began marketing its asset-tracking services in 2002.

“For the first five or six years of Skybitz’s life, the fact that we could show [clients] location and fundamental tracking of GPS data on their trailers was perfectly fine. Now they want more data,” he said.

“They say, ‘I’ve got this GPS tracking hardware on my trailer. What else can it do for me?’ “ Popplewell said. “There’s a need and a demand for more and more sophisticated data.”

But integrating all of that data isn’t easy, said Newth Morris, president of Telogis Geobase and Telogis Route, Aliso Viejo, Calif.

“You’ve got their road management package, their transportation management package, their asset-management package, their work-order management package,”

he said, noting that, while making the various systems work together can present challenges, developers realize the importance fleets place on the data they contain. “All of this relates to the activity in the field.” he said.

“Some customers have their information integrated already into their logistics systems or fleet-management systems,” said Joe Cretella, vice president of manufacturing for reefer manufacturer ThermoKing, Minneapolis, which markets its own monitoring service, called TracKing, to fleets. “They have information that says I’m going to deliver at this time and arrive at that time, and all the information about what is going to be loaded into the truck is loaded into the system, so we have to get system integration right.”

For Schneider National, Green Bay, Wis., scrutiny of data the company collects from its Qualcomm trailer-tracking system adds a layer of visibility to its over-the-road operations and helps improve everyday decision-making, said Janet Bonkowski, the carrier’s public relations manager. 

“The system doesn’t just tell you where it is, but its condition/status — meaning we know if it’s moving or stationary, empty or loaded, how long it has been at a location, etc.,” Bonkowski said. “That helps us with dispatch and optimization decisions, among other things.” Schneider National ranks No. 6 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in the United States and Canada.

For shippers of refrigerated cargo, temperature monitoring has become increasingly important, said Rick Cobb, regional manager for Sunco Carriers, Atlanta. Sunco has used a TransCore asset tracking system for the past 10 years, and while it originally considered GPS tracking a top priority, it has come to greatly appreciate temperature readings in its trailers, Cobb said.

“Ten years ago, nobody was aware of the fact that we could even get temperatures,” Cobb said. “That’s a recent thing that happened. I would say the GPS location is still the advantage that would have number-one significance, but no one would invest in this technology today without the opportunity to see the temperature modes of your refrigeration trailer.”

Robert Pfeffer, president of Pace Air Freight, Indianapolis, said his company began using a monitoring system six years ago both for GPS positioning and for real-time temperature readings.

“You can probe your cargo, probe your [trailer] — whatever the customer would want,” Pfeffer said, referring to the capabilities of the temperature-sensing devices installed in the trailer.

In fact, for the technology developers, many advances are driven by customers’ imaginations. Popplewell said users who buy a standard or even custom-developed package tend to start “playing the what-ifs” once they see what they’ve got.

For example, “We’ll go in with a customer and we’ll walk through a capabilities presentation, and they’ll look at what we do and they’ll say, ‘That’s what I want. I want to be able to track my trailer and if any trailer’s been empty for 10 days, or empty for seven days, I want that,’ “ Popplewell said.

“But once they adopt the technology,” he added, “the brainstorming starts and they say, ‘If I’m already getting this, can I get something else? If I could do this on my handheld, or on my iPhone or BlackBerry, or my driver gets an alert if something happens, that would be great.’ ”

In some cases, that customer musing has resulted in new applications — such as ones focused on security — that advance the technology.

“We have a customer who has high-value cargo,” Popplewell said. “They wanted the ability, when they parked their tractor-trailer somewhere — whether it was going to the motel for the evening or just going into the truck stop and having dinner or lunch — that the driver could shut down the equipment. So rather than having to go to an office or even a laptop to access Skybitz, they were able to do it on a handheld. [The driver] activates it.”

From there, the system acts as an alarm system that will warn the driver if someone tampers with or even tries to steal the truck, Popplewell said. “If he’s in the diner having lunch, and something starts moving, he gets an alert.”

But, while easy access to information is useful, carriers still have to consider the cost of receiving it — and developers grapple with the fact that just because something can be done doesn’t mean it can be done cost-effectively.

“On the trailer side, it’s really price-sensitive,” said Brad Aiken, director of business development for TransCore. “Customers looking for extras want to do things wirelessly, and there are challenges for battery life and cost. The technology is there. It’s just got to be delivered in a cost-effective way.”

But making a system work well sometimes requires capital investment both from fleets and from developers. This makes choosing the right partners important for both parties, said David Schrader, vice president of operations for TransCore.

“It does take a fair amount of [research and development], so that implies deeper pockets,” he said. “The more stable a business is, the more those are the kinds of partners you want to work with. They’re going to be around. These are not insignificant investments for the company.”

Schrader also said keeping up with all the data coming from the truck while offering customers a cost-effective system is “one of our bigger challenges.”

And since developers are expected to deal in large volumes of information over broad areas in real time, they have to make sure the technology on which they rely is up to date, Aiken said.

“We work with [satellite communications] technology, and we’re lucky we just secured an arrangement that lasts until 2020 for satellite bandwidth,” he said. “I know some other suppliers are not on that. Some satellites are at end-of-life, and there are guys out there who need to make a change sooner rather than later.”

While developers call those challenges difficult, they agree that they are worth tackling. With the tight profit margins in the trucking industry, fleets that find a tool that will improve operations and increase profits will not hesitate to buy it, they said.

“The customers who understand the power of these technologies now are gaining a significant competitive advantage,” Morris said. “Those who see where this is going are pulling away from the pack.”

“When we started the company, there were 350 tracking companies in the U.S.,” Morris said. “Now there are four or five. So there’s a big gap between those who really have understood this and those down below who really are just putting a dot on a map.”