By TransCore 3sixty Carrier Blog

Imagine that you’re hauling ice cream over 1,300 miles with multiple, time-sensitive drops. This is your first job for a new customer. To make it even more challenging, the entire haul takes place over a weekend, when both your company and the shipper have only a skeleton crew available to track the shipment.

That high-pressure scenario quickly became business as usual at Sunco Carriers. The Florida-based reefer operation was so successful in its first ice cream haul, it has pursued other cargo types that are highly temperature-sensitive, time-sensitive or both. The ice cream shipper rewarded Sunco’s flawless performance with additional business. According to Randal Sanchez, Sunco’s Director of Operations, the key ingredient in the company’s success is a highly customizable trailer tracking and temperature sensing solution from TransCore.

Trailer tracking has been a part of Sunco’s reefer operation for years, but the TransCore solution’s user-defined tools have given the Florida-based carrier the flexibility to pursue new cargo types, Sanchez said. While the ice cream run appeared challenging at first, Sanchez felt confident that the tracking system’s efficiencies would more than compensate for staff shortfalls on a weekend schedule.

Tracking Cargo Remotely, While Driver Slept
“We were worried at first, but then we thought: ‘Good Lord, how many people do we need to pull up a trailer?’” Sanchez explained, citing the flexibility of the tracking system’s user-defined report intervals.  “Our weekend people just watched the shipment [from their office computers] the whole time. Every hour, they got position and temperature reports,” Sanchez said. “The driver didn’t have to stop along the route for temperature checks or phone calls. And when the driver went on a break, he knew we were watching his cargo – even while he slept.”

We didn’t have to call the driver at all, not even when he approached the destination,” Sanchez continued.  “We could see when he backed up to the dock, and then we would see the temperature change from -20 to -5 degrees. We knew he had just opened the cargo door.” 

The job was successful, and Sunco won additional business from the same customer. “Many carriers wouldn’t try a haul like this, because of all the challenges involved,” he said. “We knew we had the tools available and we knew we had the equipment that could handle the freight,” Sanchez continued. “Now when we have sensitive cargo, we’ll watch the air temp and re-set our report time to return a report every hour instead of the four-hour default interval.”

“Before we had this [configurable tracking system], honestly, I don’t think we would have taken the risk or pursued that type of shipment,” Sanchez said. “TransCore’s tracking and monitoring solution opened up another commodity that we were willing to pull,” he explained, which makes Sunco more competitive in a profitable market segment.

Fine-tuning report intervals, to suit customers and cargo
“Other shipments may not have a highly temperature-sensitive nature, but the customer may be time-sensitive, and want reports at a specific interval.  We can configure the system to report back as often as the customer requires, just for the units that are handling that shipment.”

In addition to creating new business opportunities, the reefer tracking and monitoring system has enhanced customer communication and service. The system has also helped Sunco to improve utilization and prevent theft of valuable equipment.

“We use our proximity and dwell time reports to view and confirm when and where our trailers are idle,” Sanchez explained. For example, we had a trailer at a shipper, and we noticed that it had been idle for 15 days,” he continued. “The shipper said he didn’t have freight for the trailer, so we started watching it on the tracking system. It was moving!” he said. “The shipper was moving his goods back and forth across town, from one warehouse to another,” Sanchez said. “Maybe he didn’t think we’d mind. But we did,” he concluded.

Find trucks, even when they're parked in customer's yard
“Another time, a shipper called, irate, to complain that our equipment wasn’t on site,” Sanchez remembered. “I pulled up a map, converted it to the satellite view and sent him a snapshot of the trailer in his yard, attached to an email,” he continued. “I asked: ‘Would you like the driver to check back in?’ The driver was there an hour early!  The customer didn’t see him, but the TransCore system is so accurate, it showed which corner of the parking lot our truck was sitting in,” he said.

“Last week, another shipper called,” Sanchez went on. The customer has a perishable product, so he won’t even manufacture it unless the trucks are on-site, ready to ship as it comes off the production line, according to Sanchez.

“This is a place where we have at least 20 trailers at all times,” he said. “But the shipper called our sales guy and said, ‘We’re shutting down our plant tonight, because we have only 12 trailers.’ So I immediately pulled up a proximity report for the customer’s yard, based on the TransCore system’s geopoint locator, and it showed we had 24 pieces of power on-site,” Sanchez continued. “Now, the customer said his yard guy had just done a physical check and all he saw was 12 trailers, but we had 24 on site,” he continued. “The customer was able to turn on his production line, because we knew the exact location of every one of our trucks, right down to their position in the customer’s parking lot.”

“That geopoint locator has been a great tool for us. It helps us with the customer,” Sanchez added. “He calls and asks, ‘Can you tell me where the truck is?’ and we can read the last location off the report. If that’s not recent enough, we can poll the trailer on the spot, and provide the current location.” 

 “We have had some trailers stolen in the past,” Sanchez continued. “Now we go to the history report immediately, and we provide it to local authorities,” he said. “We keep our trailers on a four-hour reporting interval as a default. In one case, the driver called us when he woke up to find his truck missing in the morning. We traced the trailer to a warehouse and called the police,” he said. “We got the trailer back in less than 18 hours,” Sanchez added.” Once thieves abandon our trailer, we recover it as quickly as possible.”

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