May/June 2004

Road Tech Computer Systems has expanded from transport management systems to offer an attractive range of mobile applications built on a self-install model, including a popular Working Time Directive system. m.logistics talks to founder Derek Beevor

There's a real digital divide in the road haulage industry these days." So says Derek Beevor, founder and head of Road Tech Computer Systems, and a familiar and outspoken commentator on the market.

He stresses that the gulf is not necessarily between big and small companies, but rather between "those who are up with the latest technologies, and those who are not." "About twenty per cent of customers are making all the waves at the moment," he says.

Beevor is not of course talking here about basic IT-enablement. Few hauliers could do anything these days without some kind of computer technology. He means tracking, tracing and the mobile Internet.

 

"Our customers are telling us that when they receive an invitation to tender, nowadays there's nearly always a check box for them to show they can offer 'track and trace Web site'. They simply can't bid without confirming this."

Not that the facility is necessarily needed in practice, he adds. "One haulier got us to create a track and trace site, won a contract with a major customer, and then found that the site was only ever viewed on two occasions in the whole of the first year."

He grins with amusement as he recounts this anecdote, but quickly points out that the fault was not with the system or the haulier, but with a client "who asked for the capability, but didn't actually know what to do with it."

Driven mostly by more Internet-savvy clients, he adds, there is now an enormous push for telematics in haulage. "The operators may not always be volunteering for it, but those that don't have it are finding they can lose contracts. There's a general recognition that you simply have to have a telematics capability to compete."

He says the advent of always-on GPRS communications has played a major role in prompting this growth. "It's made operators aware that telematics can be a practical proposition for them.

"This is having a fundamental effect on the haulage industry. You used to have to be a major operator to put in this kind of technology. Now smaller operators and even owner-drivers can get an all-in telematics system, signature capture and so on for something like £15 a month. It enables them to compete on equal terms."

Such technology can also be shared by operators working cooperatively, Beevor points out. An example is the Jigsaw consortium of eight hauliers, which has chosen Road Tech to host the wide-area network that serves as its IT hub.

Road Tech believes it has a considerable strength here, since it can offer virtually all the components of a traffic management and telematics system in-house. Its well-established Roadrunner software provides the basic management functionality, while its Cablink in-cab computer can add the mobile element.

"And we run our own Web servers," Beevor points out. "Most rivals who offer Web hosting actually farm it out to third-party hosting companies. We've put in the investment ourselves. It means we can be absolutely confident that all the components will work properly together."

Taking advantage of this capability, Road Tech has for some time now promoted its "Web EDI" system, which allows order and delivery information to be passed automatically between carriers and shippers, using XML-based protocols. Users need not even be using Roadrunner, although most of them do.

Road Tech's early entry into the world of the Internet also gave it the opportunity to market its Web hosting capabilities to its haulage customers, and many now take advantage of this. The company also hosts the Road Haulage Association's Web site, as well as our very own m.logistics magazine Web site.

However, it is mobile applications that seem to be attracting the highest profile at the company at the moment. Last year Road Tech introduced an innovative mobile computing product called Roadrunner SDI (Smart Driver Interface), adopting the unusual strategy of inviting users to provide their own Pocket PC devices, and simply letting them download the software over the Internet.

"It's proved extremely popular," Beevor says, "and we've just enhanced it by adding some new features." For instance, he says, users can now record arrival and departure times at depots. It's actually completely user-configurable, he points out, and can monitor up to 99 events or activities.

The adoption of consumer PDAs for this application was a bold step, since received wisdom is that you need ruggedised units for on-board computing applications. Derek Beevor demurs. "If you buy a Pocket PC at Dixons, it's not proprietary, it costs a quarter the price of a typical data collection device, you can replace it anywhere, and it's convenient for running your own applications."

He adds that the software price (£15 per month) is comprehensive, and is rolled forward if the operator doesn't use it in any month. "Where a lot of suppliers go wrong is in trying to put a mark-up on every aspect of their service. We just charge for the system itself."

A long-time scourge of telematics systems that rely on SMS messaging to transit location information back to base, which he regards as heavily overpriced, Beevor also dismisses mobile phone-based tracking systems, which tend to place a comparable 20p charge on each polling instance. "The phone networks actually capture the positioning information anyway," he maintains, "so the price they charge is arbitrary."

Road Tech's latest mobile computing product, which is currently seeing the greatest demand, is actually free Ð for the time being, anyway. It's called Roadrunner RTD (Road Transport Directive) and is the company's contribution to demystifying the Working Time Directive.

Having registered with Road Tech, users simply log on via a GPRS-enabled PDA or mobile phone, enter their start and finishing times and breaks, and are shown a calculation of total working hours, with an indication of any infringements. Even smart mobile phones can display the resultant information in a range of textual and graphical report formats.

The service is free until March next year, and even after that will only cost £1 a week per user. Road Tech is clearly not planning on making a fortune from high prices, but is hoping to build up big volumes of users by establishing the system as the de facto way of monitoring WTD compliance in the haulage business. Endorsement by the RHA could help; the system is already available in branded version on the RHA's own Web site.

"The pain of WTD is collecting the information," Derek Beevor says. "It adds a new layer of complexity on top of tachograph analysis, which already cause enough problems with the requirement to monitor two rolling weeks' work. Our system offers users an affordable and practical solution."