DAT Solutions recently launched its DAT InView suite of trucking-business-management functions aimed squarely at the small for-hire carrier market, enabling fleets to track power units and locate them precisely and instantaneously. Part of the solution is an electronic logging device that pairs a connection with the electronic control module to the cellular network and syncs up with a Garmin tablet in-cab for the user interface.
DAT Products Vice President Greg Sikes hopes the device and software will be one that the companny’s traditional customer base through its freight matching services — “owner-operators and small fleets,” he says — find a fitting, useful suite, particularly at first the small-fleet side.
“When we looked at rolling out a solution, we thought first of the fleet and their fundamental desire to have a plug- and-play standardized approach to interaction in the cab,” Sikes says.
With the electronic hours of service logs portion of the package, DAT offers today the Garmin Fleet 670 unit in a subscription model the company compares to cable TV. “You sign up for a subscription – there is no hardware purchase,” Sikes says. Rather, it’s bundled into the contract. “The ELD enables your service to be delivered to you with a nominal activation fee. Monthly subscriptions start at $30 [monthly] and go up to $40 – a la carte options to add HOS reporting” and electronic driver vehicle inspection reports are available.
“You can start simple,” Sikes says, for instance with the basic truck-tracking/location visibility/communication elements of InView, “and grow as you need to.”
The Fleet 670 from Garmin is an Android-powered, WiFi-only tablet, with routing and other native apps installed with delivery. The tablet communicates wirelessly with the ECM-connected “black box” portion of the device, which itself gives the always-on connection to the cellular network.
By the time of the Mid-America Trucking Show in late March, DAT plans to offer a BYOD (bring-your-own-device) version of InView as well. “We recognize that having an optional purchase of a Garmin device isn’t going to be sufficient for the owner-operator,” Sikes says. The BYOD version will “be an app you can download from either Apple or from Google” app stores “that would connect to the in-cab ELD device.”
