Technology for Mobile Traffic Enforcement

Commercial Vehicles Go Smart

Intelligent Transportation Systems are being increasingly used by companies in their fleet management for tracking the vehicles, learning of problems en route and arresting pilferage. A report.

For many decades while the car segment of the automobile industry improved rapidly with improved features, little attention was paid to the commercial vehicles that plied the dusty roads of India’s hinterland. The early market leader Tata Motors quickly grasped the mindset of the Indian consumer and the limitations of our ‘License Raj’ politics that prevailed in the country for nearly half a century after independence. Since getting new licenses for manufacturing higher capacity versions was nearly impossible those days, Tata overdesigned vehicles with adequate excess load bearing capacity. A 12 tonne Tata truck was known for carrying 20 tonne load on poor quality Indian roads without any signs of fatigue or breakdown. Though this gave the Tatas a unique brand value associated with ruggedness and dependability, it caused massive overloading by truckers and slowed down the import of high powered vehicles into India except for special assignments.

After the liberalisation of the economy a decade ago things have rapidly changed in the Commercial Vehicle [CV] segment. The first flurry of foreign CVs came in the mid capacity segment when the Japanese giants Toyota, Mazda, Mitsubishi and Nissan drove into India bringing in the new generation LCVs – DCM Toyota, Swaraj Mazda, Eicher Mitsubishi and Allywn Nissan. Though many of them failed to survive in the Indian market largely due to the weakness of the Indian arm of the joint venture, they brought about the first wave of modernisation of the CV segment. Today apart from Tata, Ashok Leyland and Mahindra who have upgraded their offerings, there are several global players in the Indian market like Volvo, Daimler Benz, Man, Navistar and Scania that are bringing in a wide range of state-of-the-art commercial vehicles and efficient fleet management systems.

While inaugurating the Bharat Benz plant in Chennai last year Dr Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of Daimler Benz said, “We are sending a clear message with our new truck brand: Daimler is at home in India. Our Bharat Benz trucks are the right combination of Daimler’s DNA and India’s market knowhow. These trucks will be developed and built in India, for India, and by specialist employees from India.” The Daimler DNA is a unique blend of state-of-the-art technology and high quality delivery. This DNA makes every car, truck and engine coming out of the Daimler Benz plants worldwide famous for their performance, technology, comfort as well as ruggedness.

Bharat Benz today produces trucks in its Chennai plant that have enhanced safety and monitoring systems. From a centralised control room thousands of miles away, you can locate trucks to the last yard. Apart from a modern powerful engine, powertrain and antilock braking systems, these vehicles are equipped to cater to a state-of- the-art tracking and monitoring system.

Remote tracking devices are installed in these commercial vehicles and monitored by a Geo Positioning Satellite [GPS] controller that tracks a vehicle from point A to point B bringing about better accountability to transporters’ fleet management. On-board sensors facilitate the detection of cargo and fuel offloading and transmit the information to the command control centre, thus preventing pilferage and improper activity on the route.

The RSMS deals with both, In Vehicle Technologies (IVT) as well as external factors. Most IVT norms like Electronic Stability control, Brake assist, e Call, Advance Hazard Warning and Seat Belt Reminders have become regulatory norms across the OECD and have been adopted by all vehicle manufacturers.

These are especially useful in remote locations of coal mines, iron ore mines or construction sites where cell phones do not work, monitoring is difficult and the consignments are expensive and prone to pilferage by local mafias inducing the driver to offload part consignments on every trip against commissions. Besides, centralised logging system for consumables calculates the consumption of fuel, lubricant and coolants per kilometre. It also monitors the cost of frequently replaceable spare parts like air filters, oil filters and tyres and transmits data on a continuous basis to the control centre. This helps the fleet manager to understand vehicle wear and tear, driver skills & road conditions and leads to the re-training of people and also re-drawing of the route map wherever needed for better performance and economics. Monitoring the operational timing also helps reduce inflated overtime billings as well as keep a security check on the unauthorised use.

Swedish Commercial Vehicle giant Volvo tied up in July 2008 with Eicher Motors which previously had a collaboration with Japanese auto major Mitsubishi for the six tonne LCV segment. Volvo Eicher Commercial Vehicles (VECV), a 50:50 joint venture, manufactures contemporary 16T-40T heavy duty trucks at Pithampur in M.P. Over the years, Volvo Trucks – which uses ITS for mine duty in most of the countries – has built up an elite customer base having over 100 vehicles in its fleet operating at various mining sites across India.

Satellite based communications, while more expensive, are critical if such tracking is to work without interruptions in remote environments. The users can see actual, real-time locations of their fleet on a map. In addition to a satellite based GPS control system, few of these companies also have a SOS feature that enables contact with the control system in case of any accident or emergency.

Indian automobile giant Mahindra and Mahindra that took over the Allwyn Nissan joint venture of LCV production, has also tied up with Navistar to put on the Indian roads 4500 state-of-the-art heavy duty vehicles from the American manufacturer armed with GPS. MAN AG of Germany, which took over its Indian subsidiary MAN Trucks India Pvt Ltd, brings in India its super luxury Airbus travel coaches along with its famed wagon tipplers and long haul range of state-of-the-art trucks. Besides, MAN specialty vehicles include disaster management vehicles, compactors, transit mixers, garbage cleaners, sewage cleaning and jetting units, road sweepers, hook loaders, etc.

Indian companies like Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and Mahindra have also started incorporating a few such features in the ultra heavy vehicles segment of 20 tonne plus, where there is competition with foreign players that have superior state-of-the-art electronics and fully integrated offerings. However, limited details are actually known about these as even the sales brochures of the companies do not highlight such features but concentrate on details like engine power or transmission or fuel efficiency. This is largely because while GPS controlled efficient fleet management system is a standard feature for Daimler Benz or Man, it is only a custom built feature on demand for Indian producers who like to compete on price.

A typical fleet operator in the West is equipped with GPS tracking facilities that help the collection, recording and monitoring of real-time data. It helps the fleet administrator to ensure driver accountability, route mapping, employee time and fuel cost computation, inventory control and distribution, custom reporting, risk management, historical data mining and analytics. Apart from the cost per mile, they also facilitate the calculation of cost over time periods, that is cost per quarter and cost per year.

However, International Express companies operating in India incorporate a lot of Fleet Management (FM) practices followed internationally to achieve greater grip on the flow of deliverables. Mrinmoy Dasgupta, who was a fleet manager with TNT, says that the company’s network runs on the standard hub and spoke model with all vehicles outsourced from a set of registered vendors. Small and medium range trucks carrying 2.5 tonnes to 6 tonnes payload carry consignments to the hubs outside the city centres. From the hub, the long haul carriers (usually 8 tonne, 12 tonne and 15 tonne vehicles) carry the goods across long distances to other destination hubs.

All vehicles running for TNT on the hub or spoke use GPS Tracking but they are not integrated through ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). Most companies track the shipment on transaction level of each shipment from booking to delivery. Each shipment also gets tracked on the basis of its movement through each touch point. The Express Company separately maintains an ERP base to check in and out of their fleet of vehicles and measures the route/vehicle performance on the basis of its in-house Fleet Tracking System. However, the prime functional responsibility being of the vendor to ensure the delivery of goods, this provides only an added redundancy to an already GPS tracked fleet.

Since all the trucks are outsourced by TNT, it does not apply any type of fleet maintenance software for the vehicles. However, it has set down a methodology for risk management to avoid the threat of accidents, good pilferage and safety. The Road Safety Management System [RSMS] is adopted by TNT which defines the process to handle exigencies like theft/accidents, etc., and the drivers’ code of conduct in each specific case in order to mitigate the risk. Though all provisions of the RSMS are not applied because TNT does not have its own fleet of trucks in India, certain specific sections relating to risk managing the deliverables form a part of the directives to be followed.

So various transport companies are turning towards ITS for their fleet management. As vehicle tracking becomes more critical due to expensive cargo loads like mining, oil transportation and arrival of international freight handlers, the commercial vehicle transport sector is likely to use ITS for better management of their fleet.

Sandip Sen

(The writer is the Managing Editor of the IPP Group of Publications and an international business consultant and analyst)