Aircraft have their black boxes, now commercial vehicles are also set to get theirs. Nexgen Logistix, a Pune -based infrastructure technology management company has developed an Automobile Black Box, which will track the driver over his route, as fleet management tool.
NLL is a wholly owned subsidiary of Peninsular Trucking. It is already Inmarsat’s ‘preferred partner’ for the latter’s ‘track and trace’ global positioning system service for Asia, Africa and western Australia regions.
Moreover, it has tied up with the British company Satamatics to provide real time satellite-based automated vehicle tracking for supply chain management. Satamatics is the service arm of the TRL Technologies, the largest hardware supplier to Inmarsat, the largest geo-stationary satellite company. NLL will market Satamatics’ systems for a range of applications like transport logistics and fleet management for road, rail and marine movement.
The synergies will become clearer once NLL launches its Net-enabled product, Nexgen Tracker, which will be integrated with the Logger. The Tracker will use a GPS- satellite based navigator but its launch is dependent on up-dated maps.
The Nexgen Logger is currently in an off line mode, sitting in the truck driver’s cabin and connected to the engine, as a tamper proof measure. The upgraded version, NexGen Tracker, will allow for online tracking of the vehicle.
The Nexgen Logger is a vehicle data recorder, primarily of use to fleet owners. It monitors fuel consumption, speed, distance travelled, stops taken, hourly or daily transit reports and performance analyses.
Moreover, it provides an insight into driving habits. This monitoring translates directly into savings, says Ali, since it will help save fuel, reduce unwanted stops and lead to faster turnaround.
Priced at Rs 12,000, it pays for itself, recovering the one-time expenditure through direct and indirect savings of fuel, time and salaries. It has the capacity to store data for 90 days which can be retrieved later.
The black box is housed in a metal case, and comprises a microprocessor based unit with an LCD backlit digital display with an off-line report generation facility and a programmable report format.
