Over the last year and a half if you ever wanted as a trucking company owner buy a trailer or even to lease one you probably faced some of the longest trailer delivery times in the history of USA trucking business.
There has been cases that even up to 15 months waiting list was filled for certain part of new dry van trailers causing some of the companies to switch to buying a used trailers.
Increasing number of sold trucks in 2015 of course drives this trailer demand to the maximum levels but today there is some clouds on the sky that used to be perfectly clear and chances are that we can all expect huge number of almost brand new trailers that will flood the market in the next 3 to 12 months.
Despite the fact that there is a lot of trailers and in order to purchase/lease one it will take you around 35K (in some cases all the way up to 70K) there is still a lot of trucking companies that are not paying attention to details when it comes to trailer tracking.
What are the features of trailer tracking?
There is a lot of benefits of trailer tracking system or solutions but many trucking companies are not paying attention to this kind of service. Most of the equipment is being tracked and analyzed but trailers somehow step out of the focus.
Source: www.london-privatedetectives.co.uk
The list of benefits trailer tracking is providing is huge but here I will focus only on most important ones and maybe some of you will see wider perspective and order a some trailer tracking devices:
- know exact position of each trailer
- standalone devices with built in battery work without truck power
- left without any power devices can transmit daily location up to 3 years in a row
- advanced devices can provide with info when the trailer back door is opened
- easy to install
- very durable and good quality materials
- devices are storing location in memory
As you can see with the advancement of technology this tracking devices become more and more lighter, cheaper, durable and provide better ROI.
Trailer tracking technology evolved a lot over the last 5 to 7 years and now you can have the set of features that few years ago you were able to find only in truck GPS tracking devices/solutions.
Benefits of Trailer Tracking Devices
The main benefit and the most simple one is to know what is the location of the trailer. Yeah – I know what you mean: That the description of device is saying too but seriously guys it is really important.
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Some of the companies that are using just tractor operated kind of freight have great issues with finding their trailers.
Some of them have even up to 50 trailers lost without having a clue where those trailers are located.
Are they lost or someone just stole them. No one really knows.
Source: www.gpoausa.com
But of course that is the main reason and benefit trucking companies want to invest addition funds in trailer tracking solution/devices but there is more to get.
Of course this set of features it depends of the trailer tacking device itself but if you decide to go after the best ones and buy them this is a set of features you can expect to have:
- tracking position of the all company trailers
- monitoring reefer temperature and automatically create temperature reports
- get alerted and recorded every time some one opened the trailer door
- get realtime trailer location in intervals of just 30 seconds
- alarms if reefer trailer gets out of fuel or the fuel level is at minimum
Depending of the trucking company this kind of trailers and trailer tracking units and possibilities can be really important and business changing features. Learn them and every time you go and talk with your GPS service provider ask them if they have a trailer tracking devices and what is the set of features they can provide.
What to have in mind when choosing the trailer tracking devices?
There is a huge difference between different trailer tracking service providers and devices it self.
Over the last few years there has been a lot of competition in this arena which brought the prices down but in some cases that is paid on quality side because those devices have questionable durability. Cheaper is not always better – at least in this case.
Source: www.gpspolice.com
So as said there is some things to have in mind so read this part really carefully because it can save you a lot of money, time, truck and trailer downtime:
1. Are device working on 3G or 2G network – one the best and high end manufacturers all the trailer tracking devices have devices operating on 3G network.
The entire telematics industry operates on 2G but there is a huge change to happen over the next 18 month 2G will be shut down causing all 2G device to become dead.
So when considering to buy trailer tracking device ask you service providers are devices 3G compatible. They use tricks to offer amazing prices promising national coverage and so on but you could face devices going dead if not 3G compatible.
2. Are devices battery operated – those kind of devices are extremely easy to install which saves you a lot of money and reduce trailer downtime. But they have one more amazing feature and that is that they are running even though trailer is not connected to the truck and doesn’t have a power connection.
Some of the best ones you on find on the market have a battery installed that ensures 7 years life time at the base of sending location once per day. Of course this feature affects the price too but, do some calculations what you business needs and decide accordingly.
Source: www.psdgraphics.com
3. How often is trailer tracking device sending location – this is also extremely important because it can affect multiple features such us: battery durability, price, data plan required, data plan price and so on.
