Trucking Technology Report - June 22
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Both the online report and e-mail are sponsored by @Track Communications, a supplier of wireless communications and dispatch services.
Today's Technology Headlines:
- Arsenault Forms Alliance
- NTE Goes Live With FreightMatrix Services
- @Track Closes Transaction With Minorplanet
- Roadway Express Tops E-Biz
- Microtransactions Are Wave of the Future
Arsenault Forms Alliance
Arnsenault Associates recently joined forces with Fleetcommunity to allow Fleetcommunity members the ability to access advanced maintenance management technology at members-only rates.An opt-in email community for fleet managers, Fleetcommunity eases the exchange of ideas and practices between the more than 575 members. Both companies have developed the alliance in an effort to bring Fleetcommunity members technological choices including running Dossier software on their own computers or running their maintenance program through the Internet. Modern Bulk Transporter (June 2001) Vol. 63, No. 12, P. 38
NTE Goes Live With FreightMatrix Services
NTE has gone live with a link to FreightMatrix, an online transportation marketplace.Shipper customers of FreightMatrix will be able to buy transportation capacity from members of NTE, formerly known as the National Transportation Exchange. FreightMatrix earlier this month started offering the NTE link to shippers without their having to leave the FreigtMatrix Web site. Journal of Commerce Online (06/22/01); Atkinson, Helen
@Track Closes Transaction With Minorplanet
@Track Communications, Inc., a provider of wireless-based vehicle fleet management and intelligent mobile-asset-tracking solutions, has consummated the transactions previously approved by @Track shareholders.@Track issued 30 million shares of common stock in exchange for $10 million in cash and a royalty-free, 99-year exclusive license to market, sell, and operate Minorplanet's vehicle management information technologies in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
The transaction should enable @Track to use the technology acquired from Minorplanet to quickly and cost-effectively develop products for entry into the 21-million automatic vehicle location marketplace in the United States. @Track Communications News Release (06/21/01)
Customers access the site to attain important information, such as a shipment's location, or access specialized features like proof of delivery, which displays pictures of signed delivery receipts. In addition, the site can send e-mail alerts to shipping agents informing them of any alterations to the shipping schedule, such as possible delays caused by bad weather.
Roadway plans to upgrade the site to handle integrated payment and next-generation XML in the future. The company is collaborating with numerous standards organizations, such as the American Trucking Association's Technology and Maintenance Council, UUCnet (Uniform Commercial Code), and VICS (Voluntary Inter-industry Commerce Standards), to establish industry-wide XML standards.
Roadway's director of e-commerce technologies, Dave Pavlich, expects adoption of XML to improve data exchanges at myroadway.com without taxing the system. Internet Week (06/14/01); Karpinski, Richard
In Japan, low cost "always-on" wireless devices have led to the widespread purchasing of small ticket items via electronic wallets and other forms of e-cash, says White, something that is not imminent in the United States because of the "expensive mobile telephone networks" here. Germany prefers smart cards, and over 40 million smart cards are in circulation throughout Germany.
Microtransactions are especially useful for physically mobile people, says White, although he says that a large infrastructure of vendors, banks, and handheld devices will have to emerge before mobile microtransactions can truly take off in the United States. CIO (June 2001) Vol. 14, No. 16, P. 56; Wheatly, Malcolm
A href="https://www.ttnews.com/members/topNews/0007451.html">Previous Trucking Technology ReportRoadway Express Tops E-Biz
Seventy-year-old trucking company Roadway Express offers less-than-truckload (LTL) service throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Key to the service is the myroadway.com extranet site, which has more than 15,000 registered subscribers.Microtransactions Are Wave of the Future
London-based Quidnunc managing partner Mark White believes that microtransactions--the purchasing of small items such as sodas and candy through electronic means--are the wave of the future, even though only Germany and Japan seem to be leading the way so far.
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