Truck-Lite Announces Partners for Road Ready Trailer Telematics System
ATLANTA — Truck-Lite Co. announced two developments with its Road Ready trailer telematics system at the Technology & Maintenance Council’s annual meeting here — a partnership with five industry suppliers and an installation app.
At a March 7 press event at its booth, Truck-Lite announced partnerships with Continental, Hendrickson, Stemco, P.S.I. and Purkeys.
These companies “are the first to sign up with us to allow us to read their data off their sensors, and run it through our Road Ready network,” Rob Richard, vice president and general manager of Road Ready, told Transport Topics. The company now has data that fleets want for tires, air pressure, brakes and hub ends, Richard said.
Road Ready reads that data, brings it up to its cloud through a master control unit and sends it “directly to the fleets or to the OEM’s back-end system, or can run through our user interface — our back-end system,” Richard said.
Truck-Lite will be announcing five more companies in the next four weeks, he said.
The company also announced its Road Ready installation app.
John Sommers II for Transport Topics
“When you’re adding an MCU, or master control unit, and adding our SmartBridge Integrator or adding some sensors, you have to type in the trailer serial number and then each of those devices’ serial numbers so they pair and can talk to each other,” Richard said. The Road Ready installation app can scan the bar codes of the trailer, the MCU and any other sensors automatically, he said.
“No typing, no data entry errors — it’s all automatic,” Richard said, noting it’s similar to scanning a serial number at a store to get a price for a product.
Truck-Lite launched the SmartBridge Integrator a year ago at TMC, Richard said. The SmartBridge Integrator “allows you to access real-time data from existing OE partner devices,” according to a product brochure.
However, Richard said, it’s “almost like a brand new launch because we have five companies now when we only had one company last year.”
