Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/339485
COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | JULY 2014 53 TECHNOLOGY: TRAILER TRACKING connected, batteries can provide uninterrupted coverage for several weeks. Systems that monitor temperature and other conditions draw power from the reefer unit. Spireon's FleetLocate tracking platform uses a redundant power supply. If the ABS line goes down, its hardware draws power from the trailer's running lights. Orbcomm's GT 1100, a rugged tracking device with an integrated solar panel, can report trailer location and other status information 50 times through a dual-mode satellite and cellular modem for each hour of sunlight it absorbs. EXPANDED INFORMATION Technology providers today are focused on differentiating themselves by providing more frequent, robust and tailored reporting capabilities. "The decision today is a lot more about the data that the customer wants to get from the system and how a particular company is able to de- liver that," says Henry Popplewell, executive vice president and general manager of SkyBitz. During the past year, fleets interested in trailer tracking have lined up in two distinct groups, Pop- plewell says. The first is content with know- ing the location of trailers once or twice per day. The second, and fastest-grow- ing, wants frequent reporting of location, mileage, speed and other information, along with sophisticated tools to analyze it quickly. SkyBitz has a robust analytics tool in its customer Web portal, Insight, which allows users to view data trends for select time periods. The tool can be used to monitor trailer commitments with customers by location. Spireon's FleetLocate platform captures GPS locations every second and reports every 10 minutes. The cloud-based management portal also includes business intelligence tools such as the Par trend analysis report that allows users to compare and monitor trailer count, by location, to an estab- lished baseline each day and over time. The Par report was developed in consultation with Co- ca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated, which wanted to decrease the expense of leasing trailers and ensure that trailer capacity matched daily production at each distribution center. SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE The upfront cost of trailer tracking hardware – between $400 and $600, with monthly wireless costs of about $15 – used to be a barrier for companies. SkyBitz and Spireon both have adopted Software-as-a-Service models designed to allow fleets to deploy technology without an upfront capital investment. After SkyBitz was purchased last year by private equity in- vestment group Telular, the companies mutually determined that data was key to the future of the trailer tracking busi- ness, Popplewell says. With SkyBitz's new service platform, it provides the hardware and all ongoing maintenance for a monthly fee. "We realized that when people go out and buy a new trailer, they plan to run it for 10 to 12 years," Popplewell says. "They do not want to be worried about hardware that is going to last five or six years. They want it to last the life of the trailer." DATA INTEGRATION Data collected from trailer tracking systems, when added to the stream from other sources, easily can get buried in a pile of to-do lists. Big strides have been made to integrate the data into one portal for fleets' native transportation management systems. CarrierWeb offers fleet management systems for both tractor and trailer assets. The information from each system can be viewed through a single configurable portal for TMS integration. Its reefer tracking system, ReeferMate, captures Spireon's FleetLocate platform captures GPS locations every second and reports every 10 minutes, and also provides a management portal that incorporates business intelligence tools. SkyBitz as a Service, available through a monthly subscription, is designed to provide trailer and asset information management and historical trends analytics without upfront capital investment. CarrierWeb's ReeferMate reefer tracking system captures a broad range of data every 60 seconds when under power. Isotrak's trailer tracking mod- ule allows fleets to drill down to trailer location every five minutes and set geofences to automate reporting of arriv- als and departures at given destinations.