Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/959367
commercial carrier journal | april 2018 35 Customers expect service fleets to know what they're doing I f a home service professional isn't technologically savvy, two out of three consumers won't use him again, accord- ing to a survey of 1,026 U.S. consumers. The survey by KRC Research, in a partnership with Verizon Telematics, had the following results for service professionals across five industries: trucking/deliv- ery; construc- tion; landscap- ing; plumbing; and heating, ventilation and air conditioning: • 78 percent who use mo- bile technology, which includes work applica- tions or software available on a tablet or laptop, reported an in- crease in custom- er satisfaction; • 70 percent rec- ognize that technology adoption needs to be a top priority to ensure future business success; • 69 percent said that sales have grown as a result of mobile technology use; and • 61 percent of truck drivers believe that connected vehicles provide an imme- diate return on investment. Some of the most common issues consumers encounter when working with service professionals include unexpected costs (34 percent), projects taking longer than planned (31 per- cent), quality of work (26 percent) and late arrivals or missed appointments (25 percent). – Aaron Huff ing opportunities for carriers. Omnitracs has a partnership with Peloton Tech- nologies, which is developing a platform that enables two trucks to platoon and maintain highway speeds in close proximity by automating their throttle and braking. The lead tractor in a platoon will save 4.5 percent in fuel and the rear vehicle 10 percent. During the Outlook user conference, Kevin Haugh, Omnitracs' chief prod- uct and strategy officer, explained the depth and breadth of the company's fleet management technology that it has acquired and is developing under Vista's ownership. Recent work has focused on converging technologies in the "first, mid- dle and final mile" of transportation and distribution. The company has developed applications for carriers with all types of operations, and at the conference, it announced a new unified stack of technology solutions called Omnitracs One. The integrated Software-as-a-Service applications unite features and functionalities from the Omnitracs portfolio of routing, dispatch, compliance, navigation, safety and more products in a single-source user experience that covers everything from fleet operations management to mobile driver inter- faces, data analytics, data discovery and reporting. For the data analytics and discovery components, Omnitracs has created new user experiences that provide a comprehensive view of fleet opera- tions with key indicators for vehicle and driver status. Drill-down features allow users to find and take action on real-time information and predict problems ahead of time. Omnitracs One is designed to be de- vice-agnostic to give fleets a broader array of options based on their needs, with an "open and secure" architecture for instant access to a network of technology partners and system integrations. As part of the Omnitracs One platform, the company will release an Android version of its in-cab IVG platform later this year. "We want to make it easy for drivers to do what they do," Haugh said. "We are able to bring everything together seamlessly for the driver so they can manage their workday better." AARON HUFF is Senior Editor of Commercial Carrier Journal. E-mail ahuff@ccjmagazine.com or call (801) 754-4296. INTERESTED IN TRUCKING TECHNOLOGY? Scan the barcode or go to www.goo.gl/Ph9JK to subscribe to the CCJ Technology Weekly e-mail newsletter. Omnitracs will release an Android version of its in-cab IVG platform later this year. According to the survey, 61 percent of truck drivers believe that connected vehicles provide an immediate return on investment.