iTECH: Fleets See Greater Productivity, Profits From Refrigerated Trailer Tracking

When Stevens Transport Inc. went looking for a tracking system for its refrigerated trailers, at the top of its wish list was technology that not only would send a report about problems with the reefer but also would allow the company to take care of the trouble on the fly.

“We have been seeking a provider who was capable of two-way control of the temperature settings,” said Scott Mellman, the Dallas-based carrier’s director of logistics. “Knowing that a trailer was inadvertently set at the wrong temperature was nice to know, but being able to react and correct it in real time is the key.”

Stevens Transport, No. 44 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers, currently is testing StarTrak Information Technologies’ trailer devices on 100 of its 3,500 refrigerated trailers, Mellman said. The devices, he said, provide inventory management data such as dwell time, temperature history, alerts (fuel level low, rapid fuel loss, bad sensors), reefer settings (start/stop or cycle sentry) and transport refrigeration unit (TRU) engine hours — information useful for maintenance planning.

Mellman said he values the technology’s ability to take commands, as well as its reporting capability — and he is leveraging the data to obtain extraordinary operational insights.

“We utilize ambient temperatures relative to humidity to calculate reefer fuel burn per hour at different temperature settings,” Mellman explained.

Although the use of reefer tracking often is driven by customer policies and government regulations that require certain loads to be temperature monitored, carrier and tech company executives said the accumulation of ancillary data from these devices — such as fuel use, maintenance alerts and asset utilization — can help improve a fleet’s bottom line, which is the driving force behind the interest in the technology.

“There is a cost-containment opportunity with reefers if you are effectively monitoring your fuel usage,” said Ron Hall, director of operation technology for refrigerated carrier C.R. England Inc., based in Salt Lake City.

Hall said the company had been using tethered trailer tracking (the technology is in the tractor) for more than a decade before it added untethered reefer tracking (the technology is in the trailer) in 2008. The addition provides greater visibility into what is occurring with a particular trailer, he said.

“We have a snapshot record of change in status when a trailer leaves the customer” Hall said. “With the set-point and return air-temperature monitoring, if there is a problem, we can see if the product was loaded warm or verify if the trailer was not sufficiently precooled.”

Reefer tracking also has improved trailer utilization, said Hall, who explained that the reefer segment is tighter on trailer ratios because of their added expense.

“Because you are running fewer trailers, knowledge of where they are is extremely important,” he said. “If I know where they are, I can achieve the same productivity with fewer trailers.”

Moreover, the company was able to expand its business without the cost of having to buy additional trailers, he said.

“We knew there’d be [return on investment] from reduced product claims and [TRU] fuel savings, and calculated 2½ to 3 years to break even, but we cut that ROI time in half because of trailer-utilization improvements,” Hall said. “We were pleasantly surprised at how impactful that portion of the ROI was.”

Another benefit of reefer tracking is the ability to count engine run hours on the TRU, which allows carriers to “plan preventive maintenance based on the data we get,” he said.

“We get real-time alerts for a mechanical alarm code or low fuel level via a dashboard app in our dispatch software,” Hall said. “SkyBitz provided the data configuration, and we customized our business intelligence dashboard ourselves.”

SkyBitz, a provider of remote asset-management solutions, does not currently offer a reefer system, but it has partnerships with other reefer technology firms to provide a single-user interface for clients to monitor their supply chain for both dry goods and reefer goods.

C.R. England, which ranks No. 21 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers, uses the RT-100 from PAR Logistics Management Systems Corp., purchased through SkyBitz, to monitor 5,200 linehaul reefer trailers. PAR LMS, a wholly owned subsidiary of PAR Technology Corp., New Hartford, N.Y., offers technology for monitoring trailer and container transport assets and cargo.

Stevens Transport’s reefer-tracking supplier StarTrak, Morris Plains, N.J., and partner Xata Corp., Eden Prairie, Minn., are offering a system that provides full reefer monitoring — including alarms, TRU operational status and changes to that status.

Integrated trailer-tracking technology offered by software providers is replacing the need for customized applications for each carrier. Working with C.R. England, software provider TMW Systems Inc., Beachwood, Ohio, is developing a trailer-tracking screen within its operations software so dispatchers no longer will have to scratch-build a dashboard or go to a trailer-tracking provider’s website to find data. Dispatchers automatically will receive temperature, door or load alerts on the trailers. They also will be able to send new temperature or alarm settings to the reefer trailers or view a map of position reports for a single trailer or all trailers.

“The translation of this information to and from the tracking provider’s individual communications specs is all handled by the TMW interface layer, keeping the information presentation as simple and straightforward for the user as possible,” said Keith Mader, vice president of development for TMW.

The integration of telematics with the engine’s electronic control module (ECM) is expanding over-the-air upgrade capabilities, Hall said. For example, he would like to use trailer-tracking devices to provide direct ECM firmware updates to tell the TRU how it should run or set designated temperature profiles.

“Now I have to touch every unit to change and give a named profile. I want to upgrade firmware remotely over the air instead of reflashing via a laptop,” Hall said.

By mining data generated by the TRU’s ECM, trailer temperature and other sensors, getting the data transmitted and integrated into enterprise software, fleets can keep up more easily with a variety of issues involving the reefer, according to technology providers.

Qualcomm Inc., San Diego, offers Trailer Tracks 210, an untethered system that provides information on past and current location, arrival and departure notification, alerts when an asset enters or exits a defined area, when it starts and ends a journey, or door openings and closings. The reefer-tracking system reports temperatures in the trailer, and exception alerts are customer-configurable for temperature variance and duration.

“We also allow customers to configure items to monitor — for example, when return air temperature becomes 9 degrees out of tolerance — but don’t alert me until that’s occurred for 30 minutes,” said Jeff Griswold, Qualcomm’s product manager.

A carrier can elect to receive periodic status reports, scheduled by elapsed time or time of day, in addition to exception notifications, he said. And the system can capture reefer unit alarms, such as low fuel or low oil pressure, and send them to the website where that information is available to the carrier.

A fleet can subscribe to receive different alerts sent by e-mail or phone/pager text message to specific individuals. Critical shutdown of a TRU can alert the maintenance department; a temperature alert can be sent to dispatch or the driver.

“The trailer owner may integrate the data Qualcomm provides from our website into various back-office applications, such as dispatch or load planning software,” Griswold said. Carriers then can choose to make the data available through their back office to their customers, he added.

Customer service and government mandates, however, remain key reasons for the use of the technology, tech representatives said.

“The reefer segment needs to prove to their shippers, either proactively or defensively, that their temperature-controlled loads were well-maintained while they were in their possession,” Griswold said.

The documentation needs to be exact, he added, on the order of: “I have data from my tracking system that I can show you that the set point was -10 degrees, and while in transit, the return air temperature never exceeded -5 degrees when the load was in my custody.”

As for the mandates: “Government regulations around the chain of custody for refrigerated products require very stringent monitoring,” said Charlie Mohn, director of product management for software provider Xata Corp., Eden Prairie, Minn. “The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) regulations require that anyone transporting products like seafood, dairy and other perishables must be able to prove the chain of custody.”

TransCore Tracking & Com­munication’s Sense & Track employs the GlobalWave satellite network to provide location and reefer monitoring throughout North America.

“Position data and temperature gets back within seconds and is updated throughout the database,” said Brad Aitken, the Mississauga, Ontario, firm’s director of business development.

Aitken said that the TRU temperature set point can be automated based on the bill of lading or order information entered into the transportation management software (TMS).

“We also provide the ability for the carrier’s customer to log in and print data related to temperature monitoring,” he said.

“If you already have our trailer tracking, it is easy to add on a sensor cable and temperature sensors we can supply,” Aitken said. “Three or four are typical, but the system can support up eight different sensors at any given time.”

For cargo security, sensors can be added to monitor whether the trailer is loaded/empty, hooked/unhooked, door opened/closed, and when it starts/stops, he said.

The incremental cost increase to provide temperature monitoring, compared with dry van trailer tracking, relates primarily to the added airtime expense, Aitken said.

“The reefer fleets monitor more frequently, so that drives up the cost,” he said.

One TransCore product user is Sunco Carriers Inc., a regional and interregional carrier of climate-controlled freight based in Lakeland, Fla., that serves all states east of the Rockies. It specializes in hauling perishable consumables, including citrus juices, frozen foods and produce.

Rick Cobb, regional vice president, said Sunco had been tracking trailer location for a decade but began to add temperature tracking in 2003 and now has it on 334 of its 622 reefer trailers.

Cobb explained why his company uses temperature tracking: “It’s advantageous to us to be able to know in a timely manner those instances where we are not in an acceptable temperature range and effect a repair or remedy the situation.”

Sunco has data trackers and data loggers on all its refrigeration units that allow them to record each time there is a status change, he said.

“We have used that information to substantiate our position in regard to claims, and obviously, sometimes it has been detrimental to us, as well, on those occasions when we were at fault,” Cobb admitted.

Sunco has made temperature-tracking information available to a few shippers by giving them a login and password to TransCore’s website.

Craig Montgomery, senior vice president of marketing, customer care and product line management at SkyBitz Inc., noted that, by using asset tracking and reefer sensor technology solutions, carriers can take some of the burden off their drivers for temperature and spoilage concerns, which allows drivers to focus more on the road.