Food and drink logistics services provider Culina Logistics has revealed plans to fit out its entire fleet of around 400 trucks with forward facing cameras and remote speeding alerts.

The operator will also install a trailer tracking system on almost 1,000 trailers. Both measures are subject to a successful trial of the respective systems that will get underway in August.

The firm, which won the Temperature Controlled Operator of the Year award in this year’s Motor Transport Awards, will test the extensions to its existing Microlise tracking and telematics system on a small number of vehicles.

It will then make a final decision on full fleet rollout in Q3, Culina head of central services Alistair Brown told Motortransport.co.uk.

The Microlise Driver Safety Module will continuously record via a windscreen mounted camera connected to the onboard telematics system, alerting managers in the event of an incident, and allowing them to access footage and key vehicle data remotely.

Contextual driver speed monitoring based on the truck’s GPS location and a database of known road types and speeds will highlight any speeding to the traffic office. The system is expected to help reduce the number of accidents and incidents that occur, improving safety and fuel efficiency.

The trailer tracking system, also being provided by Microlise, will help locate individual trailers. It incorporates remote load temperature monitoring and reporting.

Commenting on the cameras, Brown said that with up to 800 loads on the road each day, the firm was bound to have “a bump or two” across any given year. “It’s to protect ourselves and our employees,” he said.

In addition to ensuring target load temperatures were adhered to, the trailer tracking system should also help avoid the cost of lost trailers, added Brown. “It’s quite easy to lose one and if you [avoid losing] two £60,000 trailers a year, the investment in tracking will probably have paid for itself,” he said.

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