When Owens Road Services experienced two years of unprecedented company growth during 2011 and 2012, they saw their fleet size double to around 200 mixed vehicles and 500 trailers. The family-run hauliers quickly realised they required a fully comprehensive tracking and fleet management system to help monitor and manage their newly expanded fleet operations.

Founded 40 years ago by two Welsh brothers, Huw and Eurof, transporting household goods and piano parts from their Llanelli headquarters, the company has since grown to become one of the UK’s leading warehousing and distribution suppliers with a further 5 depots situated across England and Wales.

With a reputation for faultless customer service and strong family values, Owens required a no-nonsense solution to help maintain these core company qualities and keep costs down as their business quickly grew. After a brief trial in 2012, Verilocation were chosen to replace their existing supplier due to their functionally rich telematics solution, straightforward reporting suite and their ability to seamlessly integrate with Owens’ existing Traffic Management System.

Since the fleet wide implementation, Owens have experienced a range of benefits from the system across all levels of their business. With real-time GPS vehicle tracking Owens are now able to offer their customers a more coherent and efficient service. Live access to their fleet’s location has proven invaluable to the transport team, enabling them to speed up the job booking process, provide accurate ETAs and boost fleet efficiency.

“The real-time vehicle tracking means we no longer need to call the drivers to find out where they are. This has significantly reduced both our communications costs and time wasted on the phone”, described Ian Owen, Operations Director for Owens Road Services.

Not only have Verilocation helped to enhance Owens’ customer service, but their market leading driver behaviour monitoring technology (CANbus) has also helped the hauliers achieve substantial fuel savings through improved driving efficiency.

“The system has enabled us to make significant fleet efficiency improvements based on the accurate data derived from the CANbus monitoring technology,” explains Emyr Owen, Group Operations Manager for Owens Road Services. “With Verilocation’s user-friendly and extensive CANbus reporting suite we have been able to effectively identify areas for improvement within the fleet. The FMS league table and fuel analysis reports show us which drivers are consistently performing below the fleet average and have proven invaluable for driver training.”

In a move to improve driver safety and reduce costly insurance premiums, the company have also recently invested in Verilocation’s latest 3G streaming HD witness cameras. With immediate access to the video footage directly from the Verilocation web interface, Owens will be able to defend against fraudulent insurance claims, whilst ensuring their duty of care and reducing their insurance premiums. The video footage will also be used in conjunction with the CANbus data to help identify drivers in need of retraining in an effort to minimise the fleet’s risk whilst out on the road.

Andrew Overton, Managing Director of Verilocation said: “With a range of operational challenges affecting their bottom line, road transport operators are finding it increasingly difficult to remain competitive and profitable in this current climate. We work closely with our customers to offer a bespoke tracking and fleet management solution using our most advanced technology to enable them to achieve greater fleet and operational efficiencies.”