Rand McNally’s DriverConnect Platform Provides End-to-End Fleet Management

Now Local Delivery and Field Service companies can monitor and optimize last-mile logistics

As a trusted industry supplier of long-haul fleet management and asset tracking solutions, Rand McNally today announced that it is expanding its telematics portfolio to serve local enterprise fleets via its proprietary DriverConnect software platform.

DriverConnect for local fleets will empower managers overseeing deliveries, home repair services, utilities and more, to:

Rand McNally announced that its fleet management solutions will now serve the last mile

• Quickly and easily monitor vehicles in near real time from a computer screen in the office or on their smart phones in the field;
• Drive fuel efficiency and safety with real-time performance and safety reporting;
• Provide exceptional service to customers by having critical information at the ready. For example, by creating custom geofences, managers can inform customers when a delivery or driver will be arriving, as well as get notification if a driver deviates from a route;
• Save on hidden costs by: 1) Accessing information about engine idle time, speeding, and excessive accelerations and decelerations, and 2) providing guidance and incentives to curb behavior that wastes fuel and shortens the lives of vehicles;
• And, develop better job cost estimates by using historical data from the DriverConnect portal.

“Today, by expanding our proprietary DriverConnect platform to include local fleets, we can offer end-to-end logistics support all from a single platform,” said Stephen Fletcher, CEO of Rand McNally. “From a truck picking up cargo at a port of entry, to movement across the country, to delivery from a distribution center to a store, vehicles and assets can all be monitored and optimized through our DriverConnect system.”

“Our goal is to continually upgrade and expand the services and features of the DriverConnect platform. Adding a local fleet option is an excellent example of the flexibility and adaptability we engineered into the platform when we built it,” Fletcher continued.

Technology is driving a new standard in customer service. Both long-haul and local fleets with last-mile requirements need greater connectivity between the back office and the vehicles on the road – whether drivers are headed to a job site, making a delivery, or answering a house call.

To enable local fleet usage of the DriverConnect system, fleets simply install Rand McNally’s new DC100^™ device, a small plug-and-play, cellular-connected that clips into a vehicle’s OBDII port. In addition to viewing the location of vans, trucks, and other vehicles, the platform offers an array of data such as the length of time drivers have stayed at a job site, downtime and engine idling, fuel consumption, and much more.

The palm-sized DC 100^™ hardware is ready to go out of the box and can be set up in less than one minute – no provisioning required. The devices are pre-matched to an account in the DriverConnect web portal, so managers can get their drivers out on the road fast. The process also is flexible, making it easy to switch DC 100^™ devices among vehicles – a real benefit for contract and seasonal companies.

The Rand McNally DriverConnect solution for the last mile has been developed for fleets serving a wide range of industries, including Plumbing, HVAC, Electrical, Pest Control, Landscaping, Roofing, and Utilities.

Through a dedicated cell modem with LTE connectivity, the device sends information to/from the DriverConnect portal every 30 seconds so managers can track vehicles in near real-time. The portal is optimized for mobile, enabling managers to log in on their smart phones as well.

The unified API for data access provides large enterprise fleets a single platform to gather intelligence – across long-haul, assets, and last-mile solutions.

Rand McNally’s announcement came this morning at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky. For more information on DriverConnect, visit fleet.randmcnally.com

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