No part of our lives has not been touched (and inevitably improved and enhanced in some way) by technological developments. If you have ever attended one of the many fascinating trucking conferences, you will know there is an almost bottomless pit of innovative and ingenious add-ons, accessories and pieces of tech fleets could install in their trucks to make them more reliable or better in some form.
What is the best of the bunch or the innovations and developments we think should be spotlighted and highlighted? In the following post we are going to look at the 6 we think have meant the best changes for the truck industry.
Dynamic Routing
When you are involved in managing fleet operations and are a part of the trucking industry, you are usually involved in the movement of either people or goods, products, materials or parts from one location to another. One great innovation in trucking technology would be hard to live without these days is dynamic routing.
This allows you the chance to add some adjustability and information to determine the routes and paths you take, particularly the likes of weather and traffic updates.
You have the chance to eliminate all those unnecessary miles and get the quickest and most direct route or find a way that takes you past major collisions or traffic backups that are currently holding things up on the road. When you can trim the time, it takes to get from one destination to another, you also reduce the amount of fuel used to achieve deliveries. All of which makes your business run more smoothly, productively and cost-effectively.
Ensuring your truck is in tip-top condition is also a must, and www.finditparts.com provides all the essential parts to make that possible.
Collision Mitigation Tech
There has been a lot of research conducted over the years that prove heavier trucks and trailers are over-represented in fatalities and collisions. According to a study carried out by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, heavier trucks and large buses accounted for around 9% of the total miles driven and 4% of the vehicles registered officially on the road but were involved in around 13% of the total traffic fatalities and 13% of all accidents
A lot of this, it is thought, has to do with their evidently larger size and mass, which is obviously going to cause greater degrees of damage to smaller vehicles. Although analysis of crash data shows the drivers of passenger vehicles are the ones usually the cause of collisions between large trucks and their vehicles, any of these types of accidents means expensive lawsuits and insurance claims.
Therefore, it is important for the profitability of a fleet and public safety for them to take efforts to avoid collision where possible. Fortunately, collision mitigation systems are improving and advancing to incorporate more sensing tech that can monitor for various kinds of crashes and can help take action to prevent them.
ELD or Electronic Logging Devices
Electronic logging devices are worth discussing because recently there was a requirement almost all interstate US commercial truckers and fleets needed to have ELDs in their trucks to be operating legally. There have been definite improvements in the technology behind these allow them to function within the rules and regulations stipulated.
Trailer Tracking
When trailer tracking tech is used it can make it much easier to track, locate and then manage these assets. This is primarily a good idea when it comes to dealing with loss prevention. For example, the addition of a system for monitoring what’s going on with trailers and where they are can help to warn drivers and fleets they are in areas where lots of thefts have taken place and can be used to track stolen trailers.
Driver Scorecards
The basic premise behind driver scorecards has always been to help you get the best MPG. Although fuel economy plays a part, the biggest variable towards mpg is the driver that can contribute a difference of between 20 to 30%. When drivers have bad habits on the road it burns more fuel than necessary and causes more problems, like accidents and even collisions.
Although they are not new, the modern approach to driver scorecards is more positive and smarter. It takes under consideration that comparing simply the mpg from one to another truck is not the best and therefore also looks at the transmission shifting, the truck and load too.
Electric Vehicles
One of the biggest changes in the automotive industry overall is the shift towards autonomous and electric vehicles. If you thought the tech was just hype, it really is revolutionary. Driverless trucks are the way forward and more companies are likely to adopt it.