There is a plethora of voice communication systems on the local market from CB radios, to radio trunking, telephone equipment and of course the ubiquitous cellular telephone. 

Being what it is, the road freight industry needs robust equipment, preferably a fixed system that provides reliable communications in extreme conditions and rough terrain. 

Dave Griffin, MD of Advanced Fitment Centre (AFC), claims to have just the tool for the job in the form of the Motorola M930. 

Griffin says Motorola had, in the past, offered a variety of communications solutions aimed at the vehicle fleet market but encountered numerous issues with regards to the maintenance and installation of these products, which was often due to their poor durability. 

This resulted in high costs for the fleet companies that frequently had to remove their trucks from the road in order to service them and check why the communication system was failing to serve its purpose. 

“Having a hands-on interface with the equipment being used as well as the operators using it we soon realised that the weakest link in locally available communications systems was the handset,” Griffin says. 

Griffins explains that, in addition to a relatively harsh operating environment, the two main reasons for handsets failing to cope with the rigours of life on the road were user abuse and poor system security. “The cost of repairing these handsets was astronomical,” Griffin says. “It got to the stage where operators couldn’t cope with the ongoing bills and they simply hauled the systems out of the trucks altogether.” 

Griffins says AFC, which has a specific focus on the commercial vehicle market and includes telematics, fleet management and vehicle tracking in its portfolio of services, have put together a compact system aimed specifically at protecting the M930 from user abuse as well as the harsh environment in which it operates. “Our system is an all-in-one device compared to the previous M900 system which required five separate components.” 

Griffin says the M930 is totally hands free and comes with a sturdy metal mounting bracket. “We have never had to replace one of these systems because of driver abuse or because it was not able to cope with the operating environment,” Griffin says.