ALK Technologies announced that Roehl Transport has selected its CoPilot Truck with RouteSync capability for route compliance through integration with dispatch and fuel optimization systems.
Marshfield, WI-based Roehl is a diversified truckload transportation and logistics service provider, operates a fleet of more than 1,800 tractors throughout 48 states and Canada.
According to ALK, Roehl started a CoPilot Truck pilot project last year to evaluate the benefits of using in-cab navigation. One of the deciding factors for selecting CoPilot Truck was its ability to integrate seamlessly with the company’s dispatch, fuel optimization and mobile communication systems.
By using ALK’s RouteSync functionality, drivers receive voice guided GPS navigation from CoPilot Truck installed on Roehl’s mobile computing devices linked directly to Manhattan Associates’ Fuel&Route in the back-office. Fuel&Route uses advanced optimization techniques to generate the lowest total cost of dispatch solution taking miles, tolls, fuel, taxes, and time into account.
“Roehl was already using PC*Miler with custom routing to power Manhattan’s Fuel&Route solution. We wanted consistency between Fuel&Route and in-cab navigation to follow the same custom routing,” said Steve Cavanagh, principal consultant at Manhattan Associates. “CoPilot Truck with RouteSync is the only solution that could provide custom in-cab routing consistent with Manhattan’s Fuel&Route.”
RouteSync and Fuel&Route provide PC*Miler truck-specific routes and custom route preferences and settings between the origin and destination pair. Fuel prices and many other customer-specific variable and fixed costs are then applied to determine the optimized, least-cost route, ALK said.
“We provide specific guidance to our drivers about where they fuel and the routes they take,” said Rick Roehl, president of Roehl Transport, Inc. “A lot of navigation systems just generate what they think the route should be when we have given drivers separate instructions to fuel. That’s one of the conflicts we didn’t want to have.”
Through RouteSync, the Copilot Truck application provides Roehl’s drivers with turn-by-turn in-cab guidance to boost compliance with the Fuel&Route plan. The navigation system will alert drivers the moment they miss a turn or leave the planned route. The back-office receives real-time alerts of such events as well as planned versus actual reports for out-of-route analysis.
