When you own a fleet of vehicles it’s natural to feel concern as to where they are at any given time, why they may not be where they should be and how you communicate this to your customers. You haven’t got a clue, your driver appears to be lost or gone to the moon and meanwhile your fuel, telephone and time costs are soaring.
You’re not exactly helping the environment are you, your vehicle puffing out CO2 emissions while you sweat and fret. Talking of climate, there’s the current economic one; yes, it’s hovering over us all. You know, of course you know, how a tracking device can help reduce those everyday costs. There’s something else though that you may have missed in the anxiety pot: that neat looking tractor unit attached to your HGVs not only comes with a hefty price tag, its…er…rather an essential item in order to keep your business ticking.
The container contents are probably quite valuable too; oh, I know, it’s fine to do the brush off talk about insurance. What insurance? Does it cover for loss of time, the lost business, customer dissatisfaction and real time value? If so, hey, let me know, I’ll buy into it double quick.
The point I’m trying to make is that it’s more likely than ever that the ‘off the back of a lorry, black market’ buying and selling method is going to blossom. Why? Because more of those having a hard time of things with cut backs here and increases there, are going to get tempted to buy their stuff cheaply, and without too much question of where it came from.
It might be an unscrupulous and wrong way to trade but if your truck or container gets taken while no-one’s looking, there’s no amount of moral talk that is going to help you.
Think about it for a minute: when a vehicle is parked in a depot, without its driver, loaded to capacity, ready for the morning delivery run, that’s risking a lot.
It’s easier and a huge amount cheaper when you can keep updated on the location of your fleet vehicles every minute of the day, whether stationery or on the road and protect your HGV.
Q: How?
A: With today’s simple, and quite inexpensive, innovative technology.
Regular tracking device surveillance can link to your computer and the location of the vehicle pin pointed with fine accuracy; alerts can be set up so you know if anyone has moved your truck, trailer, container or lorry or if the vehicle is not where you expected it to be or travelling the wrong route.
It may be that the reason is simple driver error and all is fine, other than your telephone bill, peace of mind, petrol cost and time waste. On the other hand, if your HGV is heading off on the route to the black market, it’s also ok because the police will take no time in retrieving your goods…if you can identify the location.
