Trailers play an important role in a variety of businesses and organisations’ fleets and in agricultural operations. These assets are essential, but they’re also vulnerable to crime. The UK economy loses £420 million to freight crime every year.
Trailer tracking devices are a powerful way to boost the security of your fleet assets, and that’s not all. The many benefits this innovative technology offers can also enhance fleet management in a host of other ways. Find out how fleet tracking solutions play a role in preventing trailer theft and making a significant difference to your operations.
The Benefits of Trailer Tracking Devices
Crystal Ball’s advanced trailer tracking devices use GPS technology to collect a range of data in real-time. These trackers store data such as location and speed, while the customised dashboard makes it easy to access this data, reports and analytics, and other features. Let’s take a look at how installing trailer trackers can benefit your organisation.
Improved Fleet and Operational Efficiency
It’s not easy to manage multiple trailers when you have a large fleet and vehicles and trailers in various locations, especially when you want insights about trailer allocation and use. Our tracking system’s GPS tracking technology gives you a bird’s eye view of your assets, so you know where all your trailers are and whether they’re being used.
Thanks to these fleet tracking solutions, you never need to worry about making double bookings or not deriving as much use and value as possible from your trailers. Instead, you can create schedules and respond to unplanned requests efficiently.
Real-Time Monitoring
With hundreds of thousands of trailers in use in the UK, fleet visibility is essential. Advanced trailer tracking devices offer real-time monitoring, allowing you to keep track of your assets and helping to prevent trailer theft. This monitoring goes beyond location, date, time, speed, direction, and routes. It also offers insights into driver behaviour, indicating speeding, idling, harsh braking, cornering, and acceleration.
Trailer trackers’ GPS technology also comes in handy if you use contractors for some of your tasks or assignments. If a contractor using one of your trailers doesn’t have vehicle tracking software, the tracker in the trailer enables you to keep an eye on it.
Cost Savings
Keeping operating costs low is a priority for every fleet manager. The best fleet tracking solutions can help you minimise a range of expenses, leading to important cost savings.
Trailer trackers provide insights that can be used to find better routes and streamline assignments and dispatching, thereby reducing fuel costs. Other features, such as driver behaviour monitoring and maintenance alerts, can also help reduce maintenance and repair costs. Some insurers offer discounts of between 5% and 20% to clients who install tracking devices in their vehicles and trailers.
Increased Security
Trailer theft in the UK’s rural areas increased by 66% in 2023, while criminals targeted a staggering number of HGV trailers for cargo theft. Trailer tracking devices can play a pivotal role in deterring or preventing trailer theft and increasing the chances of recovery if one of your trailers is stolen.
Theft from and of trailers usually happens when they’re parked for extended periods. Our tracking system lets you see which trailers are not moving and where they are. This technology can also alert you to unauthorised trailer movement. If a trailer is stolen, you can give its location to police, who can act swiftly to recover it.
Optimised Maintenance
Tyre problems, electrical faults, brake issues, and other hitches can bring some of your fleet operations to a standstill. Regular maintenance is essential, but it’s not always easy to keep track of it. Proactive maintenance is also important to prevent relatively small issues from becoming bigger, more expensive, and potentially more dangerous problems.
In addition to receiving service date notifications and accessing maintenance records, you can use our fleet tracking solutions to identify trailers that may require an inspection and proactive maintenance. You can see which trailers have been used extensively since their last inspection and service or subjected to bad driving behaviours such as harsh braking, cornering, and speeding.
Greater Regulatory Compliance
Trailer tracking devices can benefit your fleet and business by supporting greater compliance in various areas. Among them are legal regulations, industry and/or company standards, insurance requirements, safety regulations, cargo security, documentation, and environmental/sustainability considerations.
Our fleet tracking solutions offer insights into the chain of custody. You can easily access the location and status of trailers and their cargo, monitor their movements, and spot unauthorised use. By tracking trailers from the start of the journey to its end, they provide a transparent and auditable record of custody. This enables you to comply with handling, tracking, and delivery-related regulations and standards.
You can also use the data generated by trailer tracking systems in compliance reporting. These systems provide metrics such as journey times and trailer locations for more accurate reports on delivery timeline compliance, trailer movements, and other aspects of compliance.
Reduced Fuel Consumption
Even though trailers do not consume fuel, they increase fuel costs due to vehicles using more fuel when towing them. You can use our trailer tracking devices to help reduce fuel consumption in various ways.
One way is to use GPS tracking data, such as historical journey route and time information, to identify the most efficient routes, which should lead to fuel savings. The optimised maintenance we discussed above can also help reduce fuel consumption, as well-maintained vehicles are more fuel-efficient. Driver behaviour monitoring allows you to address problem driving practices contributing to fuel consumption, such as harsh accelerating, speeding, and idling.
Boost Your Operations With Trailer Asset Tracking
Depending on the size of your fleet, installing trailer tracking devices may require a relatively large initial investment. However, benefits such as preventing trailer theft, greater fleet and operational efficiency, cost savings, better maintenance, greater compliance, and reduced fuel consumption can result in a substantial return on that investment.
To fully take advantage of fleet tracking solutions, it’s important to choose tracking technologies that meet your fleet’s needs. Crystal Ball’s tailored trailer tracking technologies can do that. Contact us for more information about installing trackers in your trailers and vehicles.