Truck telematics company Motive recently joined the Trucker Tools community to provide enhanced real-time tracking through its in-cab ELD gateway.
Motive, formerly known as KeepTruckin, provides visibility into all aspects of fleet operations, from safety and hours-of-service compliance and reporting, to real-time GPS tracking and geofence alerts, fuel cost and risk management. Its Vehicle Gateway product is used by more than 120,000 trucking operators, from individual owner-operators and small mom-and-pop fleets, to the largest nationwide truckload carriers, the company said.
“We’re excited to welcome Motive to the Trucker Tools community,” said Kary Jablonski, Trucker Tools chief executive. “Adding Motive’s tracking and telematics data further enriches and complements our visibility solution with another resource for accurate, real-time data on in-transit truck location and progress to delivery.”
Jablonski said the partnership is a win for Trucker Tools brokers and customers, as well as truckers looking to simplify and automate the provision of GPS location updates, while still maintaining control over their data.
“For brokers, it’s being more responsive to their customers through access to visibility data from as many ELD systems as possible,” she explained. “For truckers, it’s one less responsibility that needs their manual intervention. Once they give their consent, tracking starts and continues automatically, and can be turned on or off at their command, such as when they are at rest.”
Trucker Tools’ Jablonski emphasized that access to Motive location data is permission-based with the truck owner-operator controlling access to their devices. Once activated, in-transit data from the Vehicle Gateway is transmitted into the Trucker Tools platform, where it can be accessed through the Trucker Tools Smart Capacity app on a smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer. Only permission-based data is accessed, no other data outside of location updates is shared, Jablonski maintained. Activation typically is instituted within a day once a request from a shipper or broker is received, and driver permission is obtained.
Jablonski added that the Trucker Tools platform has safeguards to ensure security and integrity of data, as well as rules to prevent duplication of data and ensure visibility status is up to date and accurate. Truckers can choose to have tracking data transmitted through their in-cab ELD or through the Trucker Tools mobile driver app on their GPS-enabled smartphone.