Fleet management technology provider KeepTruckin Inc. today continued to leverage its deep venture capital funding by launching two hardware devices it says can help truck fleets to maximize their revenue and reduce operational costs.
The company unveiled an "asset gateway" that mounts to the outside of cargo trailersto provide better visibility into equipment and assets, and a dual-facing "smart dashcam" that attaches to a vehicle's windshield to help monitor and reduce driver risks.
The products are the latest product launches from San Francisco-based KeepTruckin since it landed a huge, $149 million investment in April from a group of venture capital firms including Google Ventures. At the time, KeepTruckin said it would use the funds to accelerate the development of its "Smart Load Board" online freight-matching tool. The company's overall platform connects vehicles, drivers, and fleet managers through products including electronic logging devices (ELDs), an electronic logbook app for smartphones, dashcams, and an App Marketplace.
In August, KeepTruckin also launched a "Facility Insights" software tool that lets carriers predict dwell times at warehouses before accepting a load, so they can minimize the "unnecessary expense" of lengthy detention times.
The new hardware devices can help provide context for the enormous data sets now being generated by smart devices inside and outside of the cab, Jai Ranganathan, KeepTruckin's VP of Product, said in a release.
"Deploying a modern fleet management solution integrates data from a rich variety of sensors to create a full view of a fleet's operations, ultimately providing better utilization of assets and helping drivers make better decisions on the road," Ranganathan said. "The introduction of these two new hardware products is the next step forward in building KeepTruckin's broad portfolio of innovative solutions to make the transportation industry safer and more efficient."
The asset gateway streamlines trailer dispatch by automatically pulling location reports on all of a company's assets. Using a solar-powered battery, the device logs global positioning system (GPS) data every minute and sends that data to the KeepTruckin Dashboard every five minutes, the company said.
And the smart dashcam is designed to help companies keep their insurance premiums low by exonerating drivers with fool-proof video evidence, in cases where they are improperly blamed for collisions, KeepTruckin said.
