Transport Operator, September 2011 – IT Helping Transport Industry Work Harder and Smarter
The recession has left transport and logistics operators under severe commercial pressure. Soaring fuel prices alone over the past 12 months have added around £5,700 to the annual cost of running a 44-tonne truck.
Long-term, the recent 2011 White Paper on the Single European Transport Area suggests that any road freight delivery much above 190 miles will no longer be environmentally viable, and confirms that pressure will grow for trucks to use less fuel and produce fewer emissions when making deliveries of up to 190 miles.
The White Paper also proposes cutting carbon emissions in transport by 60% by 2050, along with a 50% shift of medium distance intercity passenger and freight journeys away from road and on to rail and waterborne transport. Inter-modal transport routes will become far more common as a result.
So how can the transport sector respond to these short and longer term challenges? Technology offers part of the answer through the increased use of telematics, traditionally thought of as appropriate only for larger operators. Research, by the Freight Transport Association (FTA,) shows that telematics make commercial sense for smaller operators as well.
An FTA telematics trial with waste management operator Vetspeed improved fleet fuel consumption and delivered potential savings of £13,000 a year. The data recovered helped drivers modify their driving and also improved productivity by 200 drops a month through better routeing and closer monitoring of driver behaviour.
Julian Barker of the FTA said: “This shows what can be done when a responsible and forward-looking operator adopts the latest technology and applies it intelligently.”
As well as running fleets as fuel efficiently as possible, logistics operators need to minimise empty running, plan routeing and deliveries more efficiently, optimise container twinning and reloads, and balance more carefully own-vehicle use and use of subcontractors. These are all areas where IT and electronic data can play a role. Enhanced telematics and mobile solutions offer full visibility of delivery and arrival times, and supply data automatically without harassing drivers with endless mobile calls, texts or emails from the transport office.
One company looking ahead at IT within logistics is Fargo Systems. Their Transport Operations and Processing System (TOPS) software manages three million container moves a year and Fargo have now launched TOPS into the distribution and general haulage sectors. TOPS gives management control all the way from point of order through logistic resource planning, fleet management, financial integration and to full analysis.
National container transport company MacIntyre Transport were delighted with the results when Fargo Systems implemented their solution using mobile PDAs in 38 MacIntyre vehicles. The Fargo solution combines job management, PoD’s, vehicle tracking and phone/SMS communications within a single mobile phone/PDA device. This allows operators to assign jobs to drivers who, in turn, use the device to accept the job. Job status, arrival, departure, load, unload and delays are automatically updated in TOPS which also captures electronic proof of delivery, manages driver timesheets and handles defect reporting.
Paul Miller, Director, MacIntyre Transport, said: “Being able to manage jobs from start to finish without operators and drivers being constantly on the phone saves a great deal of time and means that we can optimise efficiency and service for our clients.”
A key question is whether dedicated in-cab equipment or the new generation of Windows Mobile devices and Google’s Android smartphones, are the way to go. Car firms have already realised that factory fitted and costly entertainment and information centres are almost impossible to update and are quickly rendered technologically obsolete by £200 aftermarket alternatives. Firms like Saab and Mercedes-Benz are now looking to fit dashboards with iPad style screens linked to Android software which can be continuously updated. Is this the future for vans and trucks as well?
Whichever solution is adopted, the need to communicate vast amounts of data instantly in real time will become more compelling as operators seek greater efficiencies, more effectively controlled costs, and to comply with ever tighter EU environmental legislation.