Another large trucking firm has come over from the darkside to the light and is set to equip its fleet of vehicles with telematics hardware. This time around it’s Decker Truckline and its stable of over 800 refrigerated lorries and trucks, all of which are soon to be tracked by ORBCOMM telematics systems.
The choice of ORBCOMM’s system is specific, not just because it’s a strong telematics system, but because it takes into consideration the special properties of a business like Decker Trucking. On top of supporting all the usual features of telematics, like location tracking, speed monitoring and driving factors like acceleration and braking rates, ORBCOMM’s RT6000+ system will keep an eye on the temperature of all the refrigerated vehicles as well.
This is vastly important for a business that relies on providing a cold storage transport service to its customers, and doubly so that the driver is kept aware of it. The information being gathered by ORBCOMM’s system will be available in real time to the driver, as well as fleet management back at HQ, so if there’s ever a problem with the internal temperature of the vehicle, more than the produce in the back will know about it.
Of course though, ORBCOMM’s system is also expected to bring about substantial savings with regards to fuel economy and vehicle wear, as Decker Truckline can send the most efficiently located vehicles to a job, as well as making sure they stick to speed parameters.
“ORBCOMM is committed to working with partners such as Decker to achieve the maximum results with our telematics systems. We expect to contribute directly to their bottom line, enable them to improve their customer support and achieve a strong and fast Return on Investment,” said David Gsell, Senior Vice President and General Manager of ORBCOMM Solutions (via Virtual Strategy). “Decker will take advantage of our solution’s advanced features, like remote command and control of temperature and the ability to store up to 40,000 geofences on the device with automated configurable controls.”
In a big partnership like this of course, it would be remiss if a representative from Decker Truckline didn’t show his face too. Dale Decker, current VP and co-owner of the company said in a statement: “We selected ORBCOMM’s cold chain monitoring solution because of its ability to help us gain significant savings in fuel and maintenance costs by providing the location, status and utilization of our trailers whether they are en route or at the shipper’s yard.”
He went on to explain that with ORBCOMM systems, he expects the fleet managers to be able to have far greater control over the vehicles, making them a far more versatile operation over all. By tracking internal temperatures as well throughout the entire journey, it can cut back on any fraudulent claims that produce was spoiled on arrival, or that a proper cold environment wasn’t maintained, as it has the data to prove it. However, throwing away the idea that customers would try to scam it, Decker Trucking is simply in a better place to provide an improved service to them going forward.
