When Owens Road Services, UK, experienced two years of unprecedented company growth during 2011 and 2012, its fleet size also doubled to around 200 mixed vehicles and 500 trailers. The family-run hauliers quickly realized they required a fully comprehensive tracking and fleet management system to help monitor and manage their newly expanded fleet operations.

Founded 40 years ago by two Welsh brothers, Huw and Eurof, the company has since grown to become one of the UK’s leading warehousing and distribution suppliers with a five depots situated across England and Wales.

With a reputation for faultless customer service and strong family values, Owens required a no-nonsense solution to help maintain these core company qualities and keep costs down as their business grew. After a brief trial in 2012, Owens selected Verilocation, UK, to seamlessly integrate with Owens’ existing traffic management system.

Since the fleet-wide implementation, Owens has experienced a range of benefits. For example, real-time GPS vehicle tracking allows Owens to offer customers a more coherent and efficient service. Additionally, live access to the fleet’s location has proven invaluable to the transport team, enabling them to speed up the job booking process, provide accurate ETAs and boost fleet efficiency.

“The real-time vehicle tracking means we no longer need to call the drivers to find out where they are. This has significantly reduced both our communications costs and time wasted on the phone,” says Ian Owen, operations director for Owens Road Services.

Verilocation’s driver behaviour monitoring technology (CANbus) also helped the hauliers achieve substantial fuel savings through improved driving efficiency.

“The system has enabled us to make significant fleet efficiency improvements based on the accurate data derived from the CANbus monitoring technology,” says Emyr Owen, group operations managerfor Owens Road Services. “With Verilocation’s user-friendly and extensive CANbus reporting suite, we have been able to effectively identify areas for improvement within the fleet. The FMS league table and fuel analysis reports show us which drivers are consistently performing below the fleet average and have proven invaluable for driver training.”

In a move to improve driver safety and reduce costly insurance premiums, the company also invested in Verilocation’s 3G streaming HD witness cameras. With immediate access to the video footage directly from the Verilocation web interface, Owens will be able to defend against fraudulent insurance claims, whilst ensuring duty of care and reducing insurance premiums. The video footage will also be used in conjunction with the CANbus data to help identify drivers in need of re-training in an effort to minimize the fleet’s risk whilst out on the road.

“With a range of operational challenges affecting their bottom line, road transport operators are finding it increasingly difficult to remain competitive and profitable in this current climate. We work closely with our customers to offer a bespoke tracking and fleet management solution using our most advanced technology to enable them to achieve greater fleet and operational efficiencies,” says Andrew Overton, managing director of Verilocation.