GPS Beyond Track & Trace

Field Technologies Magazine recently featured Teletrac customer, A.N. Webber, in its cover story titled, “Take Fleet Management Beyond Track and Trace” which highlighted the experience of the Midwest-based logistics company in eliminating Hours of Service (HOS) violations and drastically cutting idle time through its Teletrac investment.

The company was an early adopter of GPS fleet tracking for over a decade when the technology's sole purpose was vehicle tracking. In order to keep a competitive edge in the logistics and transportation industry, A.N. Webber looked to move beyond location tracking to a system with more advanced operational data such as fuel costs and idle time

The company’s original satellite solution wasn’t doing the job. Rob Koch, Vice President of Operations, A.N. Webber, told the magazine he searched for a GPS fleet tracking provider that was sophisticated enough to scale to the needs of his industry. “[Our company] wanted more operational data, which meant a product that could tie in to the tractor’s electronic control module (ECM),” Koch said. “When fuel costs started spiking, it was very important for us to be able to track idle time and miles per gallon, but the company we were with just wasn’t growing and developing the technology to provide that tracking.”

As fuel costs rose and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration revised HOS regulations, the company looked to a provider that could change with the climate of the industry.

“Teletrac…gave us everything we were looking for, along with more features we have since grown into,” Koch says. “We wanted to start simple, to just locate drivers and track performance of the equipment. Since then we’ve built on those basic features and developed into electronic logging, on-board communication, and other functions,” he said.

Teletrac’s HOS system helps A.N. Webber monitor HOS data and keeps the company’s logs error-free. Koch noted, “We had issues with the paper logs, and 90 percent of our violations were because the logbooks were not current. The solution has eliminated all of our violations because the HOS logs are instantly and automatically updated.”

The company also relies on Teletrac to provide accurate updates to its customers about job-site data. “We can give customers better tracking information and updated load information instantly,” Koch said. “A lot of our customers also require regular hourly updates, so we can provide that information much more easily..because the system is Web-based.”

Most significantly, the company recently implemented a driver incentive program that has improved their fuel economy by eliminating idle time by 15-20%. Teletrac tracks the total fuel use and idle time of each company vehicle and uses the data to reward drivers on meeting the company’s green goals.

This range of actionable data has moved the company beyond location tracking to an advanced operation that reaps immediate business benefits.

View the full Field Technologies story here.