EROAD is set to expand the fleet of vehicles carrying its equipment, having signed a deal with TR Group to fit out the company’s 850 casual hire rental vehicles, with electronic road user charge (Eruc) hubodometers.
TR Group managing director Andrew Carpenter is particularly excited by the deal and how it will add value for customers.
“Fitting the rental fleet with telematics gives customers the opportunity to access off road RUC refunds, view vehicle location, monitor hire fleet performance, link servicing needs with workloads, send messages to trucks, and accurately match vehicle usage billing with income stream.”
TR has watched EROAD’s Eruc telematic product quickly become the heavy vehicle industry standard with many TR customers fitting the product over the past 3 years. By fitting out the TR rental fleet this means that any exisiting EROAD user can now rent a TR vehicle that can instantly integrate into their own fleet telematics.
The rental fleet fit out is part of TR Group’s ongoing commitment to its strategy of using information to help transport operators optimise vehicle profitability, compliance and safety. These services are provided to customers who rent and lease vehicles through TR’s newly formed Operational Support Services (OSS), headed up by the well known John Boocock.
TR now views the delivery of the ‘outcomes based programmes’ by TR Operational Support Services (OSS) as the game changer. Technology fit outs into cabs are a component of these services, but do not deliver results in themselves.
Over the past 4 years TR has been selling telematics technology directly to operators as an initial step along the value add road. Over that time the business has learned about the technology, structures and psychology of the telematics industry. TR has now established that it does not need to be selling the telematic hardware and connection services in order to fulfil its customer value goals.
As a result, TR is scaling back its telematics sales efforts and focusing solely on providing telematics advice to those clients who are engaging in the services of the OSS team. This advice will extend to assisting operators to connect up with a telematics provider if necessary. For this reason some of the current Telematics sales team will take up a role directly with EROAD from 1 March 2013, something that has been mutually agreed at the same time as the rental fit out deal. This stems from shared strategy discussions with EROAD.
Steven Newman chief executive of EROAD is very pleased with the deal.
“We are thrilled to have this commitment from TR to fit out their rental fleet with EROAD technology,” Newman says. “They are a very informed buyer and it shows clearly the value they see in our Eruc product.
“We are equally thrilled to welcome some of their telematics team to EROAD and have them selling directly on our behalf,” he says. “There is an obvious relationship developing from here, where we sell the technology and TR specialises in the effective use of it to obtain optimal results.”
