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Radio Still Rocks With the introduction of digital communication technologies like GPS, GSM and GPRS into the fleet management arena, good old RF (radio frequency) connectivity between truck and base station is often regarded by young technocrats as ‘old technology’. This is definitely not the case, says Neels Botha, MD, FleetCall; "radio trunking is an extremely cost effective way of managing a fleet of vehicles. Our service offers a combination of voice and data communications between base-station and vehicle. What’s more, there’s a monthly flat fee with real time data transfer and voice calls connected at less than 250 milliseconds and you don’t get closer to real time than that." Botha explains that the FleetCall footprint covers 70% of South Africa’s commercial routes and is continuously expanding. "Radio trunking doesn’t suffer drop out like cellular communications. For high risk vehicles like cash in transit vans, RF communication is a given, as with security vehicles." The software component is much like other fleet management systems with Internet access and customisable reports. "A
single radio trunking unit fixed in the cab of a truck serves
three purposes; it provides voice contact, data delivery and
vehicle polling/tracking. The data report rate can be set at five
minutes and downloaded every fifteen minutes if required.
Exception reporting is what fleet managers want nowadays, not
information overload. This approach saves money on airtime as
well. I estimate that an RF fleet management solution for Data and
Voice communication is on average, 40% cheaper than a GSM
equivalent," concludes Botha. Food for thought indeed. |
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