Website builder and online management firm, North West Media Services (NWMS), has announced a partnership with Touchstar Telematics. This might seem like an oddball pairing, considering the near-exclusive online focus of the former company, but it also has a real world signage side to the business, which means it’s sending people out to put up and take down outdoor advertising. That’s where telematics comes in.
North West Media Services has a number of prime advertising locations in its local area and it prides itself on timely management of these ad spots and the messages they serve. To ensure that drivers get to these areas in order to erect and remove adverts as quickly as possible after the decision has been made, it’s decided to team up with Touchstar to keep better track of its vehicles and their occupants.
“When it comes to outdoor advertising space there is an expectation from our clients that an advert will be in place at an agreed time to ensure that it receives the maximum desired impact”, explained Tony Jones, Operations Manager at NWMS.
“If there is a query from a client we can use TouchStar’s solution to rapidly and accurately identify where the assigned driver is, and estimate his time of arrival while the client is still on the phone. We can also identify factors that may be causing any delay, such as heavy traffic.”
Like most other telematics packages, the one being taken on by NWMS allows fleet managers to watch drivers’ locations in real time, as well as tracking important driver centric information like speed, how hard their acceleration and braking are etc.. This technology is being applied to NWMS’ vans, as well as its handful of mobile elevating work platforms, which allow workers to reach high-up billboards to paste on the latest advert. Since these vehicles are typically quite expensive, Touchstar’s system also provides another layer of protection, by tracking any vehicles that happen to be stolen.
Lucy Macintosh from Touchstar meeting with Tony Jones of NWMS
This might not seem like something that would happen on a regular basis, but Touchstar technology was only recently implemented and it has already managed to help recover one stolen vehicle in the space of fifteen minutes.
Other uses for the telematics technology will include keeping track of any unauthorised usage of vehicles, such as workers using them for personal errands. Fuel usage can be tracked too, which could also highlight unauthorised usage of company vehicles.
This isn’t the first time that NWMS has used a tracking company to help augment its services, but it hasn’t used one for the past year after becoming dissatisfied with its previous provider. However after being impressed with Touchstar’s systems in demonstrations and with its ability to help track down their stolen vehicle, NSMW was sold and has now signed on with Touchstar for a lengthy contract.
“We looked at a number of suppliers before making our decision, however TouchStar were able to provide the visibility we needed at a competitive price and most importantly, they were located right around the corner from our depot,” concluded Jones.
