Transports Sarrazain choose the CarCube touchscreen for their 200 vehicles
12 January 2010 by LS
Transports Sarrazain of Toulouse started fitting Punch Telematix onboard computing to all their fleet in December 2009. Two hundred heavy vehicles (140 tractor units, 25 articulated trucks, 15 container trucks and 20 trailers) will be receiving an onboard CarCube computer with a touchscreen and a driver's card reader between now and 30 March 2010.
Two hundred trailers will also be fitted with a Punch Trailer ID tracking device. When a tractor unit is coupled to a trailer, the CarCube will identify it automatically and will inform the company in real time.
"As hauliers, we do a lot of work at our clients' hubs," explains Lionel Sarrazain, the company's director. "We make a lot of night-time deliveries at various sites of the principal parcel delivery groups in France (the Post Office, GLS, Geodis, DHL, etc.) and we need to be able to know where our trailers are. We also want to give our clients exact schedules for the arrival and departure times for their consignments. It is an extra service that fits in perfectly with our quality policy."
Lionel Sarrazain explains what he is expecting: "Providing quick and reliable information about the dispatching of goods, optimising the drivers' hours, cutting down on infringements (driving without a driver's card, speeding and so forth) - those are our main worries. But Punch will let us do a lot of other things too: improve our fuel analysis by checking the consumption figures between the vehicles, thanks to the graphical reports; getting the itineraries, particularly for the motorway routes; and editing technical reports (braking, use of the gearbox, etc.) thanks to the connection with the engine's CAN bus."
The Punch CarCube also allows social data to be retrieved remotely. "It's an important option that we took up because most of our 300 drivers rarely return to the Toulouse site," explains the company director.
One further point convinced Lionel Sarrazain: CarCube provides drivers with real time information about their behaviour as they are driving. "The box provides a series of parameters: speed, revs, acceleration, brake use and fuel consumption. The driver gets a signal in real time if he is not driving in line with preset values. This lets him change how he is driving and rationalise how the vehicle is used."
In the medium term, this particular businessman sees the Punch IT tool as a genuine aid for decision-making. "Used properly, this mass of information will let us identify the most profitable activities and adapt our organisation to suit."