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All other information-gathering functions of the onboard computer are automated, with data transmitted to the company’s mainframe every three minutes, Turner said. Satellite communications also are available through the system. “It’s a very sound alternative but cost-prohibitive for most food distributors,” he said.
The only downside of the system is that a driver must be in the cab to receive or send a message, Turner said. “Sometimes, depending on the delivery size, he could be out of the cab for one or two hours, rendering him basically unreachable,” he said. “The future appears to be progressing to a handheld or belt-hung portable scanning system that will take all the functionality of today’s onboard systems and make it portable.” Nicholas & Co. planned to test such a setup this winter, he said.
Safety Link for Mobile Workers
MobileNet, Alpharetta, Ga., a provider of a mobile communications system, also is working to provide such portable tools to field workers who must leave the truck. The company is testing an integration of its system with a portable transmitting device made by Grace Industries, Owings, Md., said Bill Purdie, MobileNet president. A utility company is participating in the test, in which truck drivers who go alone to assess transformer repair needs, for example, wear the transmitting device.
If the worker is injured or incapacitated and the device is motionless for 90 seconds, it chirps to indicate it’s about to go off, Purdie said. If it still remains motionless, then it emits “a screaming noise” and simultaneously transmits an alert up to a couple of hundred feet to the MobileNet receiver in the truck, which relays the message, including the latitude and longitude of the device, Purdie said.
MobileNet has been working with utility fleets since 2002 to provide mobile communications and remote monitoring. The system is designed primarily to transmit via satellite, but it also has cellular capability, Purdie said. The company also has adapted its system to work over a private radio-based data network owned by a particular utility company, Purdie said. MobileNet modified the modem in its system so it could send data over the private network to a server for presentation on a Web site.
“It’s very cost-effective,” Purdie said, because the utility owns the means of transmission. Some years earlier, MobileNet discussed setting up a similar system for a utility in the Southeast, but that utility did not already have its own radio network, and it dropped the idea after concluding that it would have to make a huge investment to create one, he said.<
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