Fleet briefs: Latest from Smart Witness, DriveTech, Ontruck and Alliance Transport Technologies

SmartWitness partners with FIA European Truck Racing Championship

SmartWitness will provide its in-vehicle cameras, recorders and analysis software for all trucks that are participating in the 2020 and 2021 FIA European Truck Racing Championship (FIA ETRC).

It will provide on-demand video support for race officials at the events to help supervise sporting regulations and safety, investigate suspected driving infringements and also provide footage from the cockpits, bringing the excitement of truck racing from the driver’s perspective to the fans. 

ETRA managing director Georg Fuchs said: “SmartWitness are at the forefront of creating industry-leading fleet safety technology.

“The rugged nature of truck racing provides the best testing ground for recording incidents between vehicles and will undoubtedly also record exciting footage from the action of our truck races.”  

The Championship organisers trialled the system at its season opening race at the Autodrom Most in the Czech Republic and said that were impressed with the footage and the instant availability of videos images to investigate incidents on track.  

SmartWitness Technical Engineering Director, Dean Leonard stated: “We are proud to be a part of the FIA ETRC. We are huge fans of the sport and it’s great that we can contribute to the safety and help keep up the fair environment through swift incident resolution.”

DriveTech agrees partnership with Specialised Training for HGV licence acquisition

DriveTech and Specialised Training have agreed a partnership to offer a range of professional driver services.

HGV licence acquisition is a specific need and will support DriveTech's overarching driver training appeal in the commercial marketplace, it said.

Similarly, Specialised Training said it strengthened its reputation as a leader in professional truck driver licence acquisition.

Oli Stevenson, head of commercial development at DriveTech, said: "The ability to offer our customers HGV licence acquisition as a fully managed service in partnership with such a professional and respected business is great news.” 

Darren Clapich, business development manager at Specialised Training, added: “We are delighted to team-up with DriveTech to help further promote driving careers in this industry and attract new and high-quality drivers to this critical aspect of goods distribution.”

Ontruck launches new web tool

Ontruck has rolled out a new free web tool to help fleet managers increase volumes of loads and improve their overall business ratio in one.

A pilot of the tool conducted with 15 fleets has shown that each fleet successfully doubled their assigned loads per week when compared to other companies that did not use the new tool, it said.

The fleet app is a web version of the existing carrier app, which Ontruck launched in 2016. The latest tool provides a real-time visual overview of the fleet including vehicle locations and loads, delivery tracking, estimated costs and live notifications of delays.

Javier Escribano, chief product officer at Ontruck, said: “We want to make each of these advantages available to our fleet managers to help them work with maximum efficiency and ease while increasing their volumes of loads and business ratio.”

From the fleet app dashboard, managers can access the database of available loads and request those in which they are interested.

Ontruck assigns these loads based on the geographic area in which the fleet is operating as well as the type of vehicles available.

Once the offer is accepted, the fleet manager may then assign a driver and vehicle to each load and later upload the PODs, removing the need for additional contact such as email, fax or telephone, says Ontruck.

Alliance Transport Technologies launches new website

A new Alliance Transport Technologies website, which allows customers to access all products and services in one digital platform, has been launched.

The key changes featured on the new site are online parts ordering, a booking facility for the remanufacturing service and the ability to reserve a field service engineer.

Customers will also be able to track orders through to delivery and receive live updates as items run through the remanufacturing process.

Furthermore, a filter and search functionality has been integrated to allow customers to search by application, vehicle manufacturer and industry.

Laura Cooper, head of marketing at Alliance Transport Technologies, said: “We listened to our customers and realised that we needed to create a platform that people can interact with. One place that includes all of our product and service information to let them make the choice on how to order from us.”