May/June 2004

A new mobile data company is likely to be set up by Swiss-based international freighting giant Kuehne & Nagel in association with an as-yet unnamed external supplier. The aim will be to commercialise the e-POD proof-of-delivery system which the company has just started rolling out to its drivers, and ultimately to offer it to outside companies in markets such as parcels delivery, field service and vehicle recovery.

e-POD has been developed in-house by K&N to extend consignment tracking to the "last mile", applying technologies pioneered by the parcels market to the world of international freight. It has been constructed as an open system, using Pocket PC handheld terminals for data capture and GPRS for transmission.

Initially the company is planning to persuade its own contractors to adopt the system. It will cost them up to £80 a month all-in, including hardware, systems and air time - plus, significantly, full mobile phone functionality. Global distribution director Roger Murphy says most pay at least half that already just for their mobile phones.

He says contractors can use the same technology to integrate with other freighting companies, avoiding the need to fit separate systems for each of them.