Where are we heading? If you are a fleet manager or involved with fleet technology - a glimpse of the future came this past week at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems. Concerned primarily with traffic congestion and the role of various types of highway transportation modes using the nation's highways, there are insights to be learned and money to be saved.
When you dispatch a truck, would you like to route the truck based on current and forecast traffic levels? How valuable would it be for a driver to actively know alternative routes to bypass congestion? Would you like to proactively revise routes in progress to react to traffic flow and still meet customer needs? The obvious answer is yes.
What is this all worth to a fleet? Instead of costing your fleet by the mile, determine your cost per hour and I will bet you'll find it costs $1/minute to keep your class 8 truck on the road. Every minute your trucks are delayed costs you money.
Commercial drivers are restricted to 14 hours consecutive on duty time before they must take a break. If a driver starts his day at 0400, that driver must take a 10 hour break at 1600. Keeping the driver rolling is imperative to the bottom line of the driver and the company.
For those of you not interested in hypotheticals and who do not have time to waste thinking about technology that is not affordable or not available - I have good news. Every component to create such a system is commercially available today. These systems are literally right around the corner. And, do not look to your big companies to bring these systems to market first. It will be the smaller companies who leverage currently available open systems.
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