The quick development was possible by leveraging the intellectual property of Roadnet, a subsidiary of Omnitracs that has routing, navigation and mapping applications.
Turek led the development of Maptuit, an onboard truck navigation system that was acquired by Telogis. Based on his experience, he believes Omnitracs Navigation will be the best-in-class truck navigation platform out of the gate.
“We want to address the issues with navigation in the trucking industry, the biggest being stale data,” said Turek. “Driver experience is poorer with old data, and we are focusing our energy on trying to solve that.”
The platform collects truck route data from more than 250,000 customers that use Omnitracs’ in-cab mobile computing systems that contribute over four billion data points. The driver interface for Omnitracs Navigation provides alert information to drivers with fast, near real-time updates, and extensive fleet configuration options.
Turek said that Omnitracs Navigation provides fleets and drivers with the following differentiated features and capabilities:
Data Publishing — All of the data is stored onboard with Omnitracs as the data publisher. Updates are sent to the unit automatically as the data changes so that the unit is always current. By leveraging traditional data, (e.g., posted speed and traffic light locations) combined with real-time data, (e.g., current traffic and weather conditions), and Big Data (how a particular road is used at a certain time, and “black spot” high frequency accident zones), Omnitracs Navigation delivers a more consistent, predictable, and accurate plan for maximizing the road network.
