Dot Transportation has more than 1 million reasons to expand its reefer telematics deployment

While telematics are deeply embedded in the trucking industry now, there are not as many providers for trailer data, and even less for reefer telematics. Despite the lack of options, refrigerated trailer fleets can reap several benefits from telematics, especially when it comes to reducing fuel usage and protecting loads.

As an example, Dot Transportation (DTI), a food industry redistributor with 1,750 trucks, 180 million annual miles, and over 2,900 trailers, has been using Thermo King’s TracKing Pro telematics since it debuted in 2023. TracKing provides users with an energy usage dashboard to track fuel usage and measure CO2 emissions, a benchmark analytics dashboard, and predictive alert notifications for charging systems, low refrigeration capacity, and fuel system and diesel engine failures. And DTI has found a more than a million reasons to expand the solution—and growing. That's because the fleet has saved $1 million fleet increased using TracKing Pro, and that number should rise as the reefer fleet has upped it number of subscribed assets from 600 to 2,300.

Applying reefer data

Part of the reason the company has expanded its usage of the reefer telematics service is because of the benefits it has already seen. For example, using data from TracKing Pro, DTI realized it could save fuel by running its transport refrigeration units (TRUs) in cycle-sentry mode, where the system cycles between on and off based on setpoint and current temperature, instead of its continuous mode. This allowed DTI to monitor and send remote commands to change its units to cycle-sentry (when possible). Since then, DTI reduced its engine runtime (due to continuous mode) from 6% to 2%.

“A lot of that comes from the mode that the trailer is in the last time it was used,” explained John Ourth, director of planning, DTI. “If users do not catch that the trailer was in continuous mode and reset it to cycle-sentry on teh next load, it will continue to run on continuous and not be of value for the new load. Otherwise,the trailer will turn off and on like the furnace in your house [using cycle-sentry], so then it only really runs about 52% of the time instead of 100% of the time. All of those carbon emissions and expense are decreased for reducing excess runtime.”

And beyond decreasing their emissions, switching to cycle-sentry due to what they saw from TracKing Pro also decreased DTI’s costs, with the company expected to save $952,000 in fuel and maintenance costs within 12 months.

Additionally, Ourth said DTI has been able to leverage reefer telematics data to make other adjustments, both technologically and operationally. For example, DTI adjusted some of their trailers’ set points to solve the problem of sensors throwing alarms when the fleet would try to ask their refrigeration system to freeze items or markedly cool them, say from 80 degrees F to 34 degrees F. Now, the fleet trained their operators to use the unit as it was diesgned, avoiding mechanical failures.

“It's helping us change some of our loading practices to be more aligned with how the trailer is engineered to work and not trying to ask a piece of equipment to do something it wasn't designed to do,” Ourth explained.

Additionally, DTI has helped prevent load loss with their telematics data on more than one occasion. In one instance, the fleet found that a TRU had accidentally turned off, leaving a load valued at $78,000 at risk. But instead, they were able to send a two-way remote command to power the TRU back up through the system.

In another instance, Ourth described how DTI was monitoring TracKing Pro screens on a Friday night and saw that a trailer was malfunctioning. They contacted the supplier, who was then able to unload the trailer that night before they went home, and DTI sent in a new trailer on Sunday.

“It saved them potentially losing a load of product because they were getting ready to go home for the weekend, and they might not have found it until we showed up to pick it up a few days later,” Ourth noted.

The future for reefer telematics

While these features are available to reefer fleets now, there’s more coming as this technology develops.

“There’s a couple things that we're working on right now,” explained Dominic Hand, VP, Digital, Thermo King. “Number one [is] adding more visibility to the rest of the trailer.”

Currently, TracKing Pro can relay data on the refrigeration system, including fuel and door usage. But Hand said that Thermo King has recently launched TracKing Smart Trailer Telematics, which allows fleets to monitor tires, brakes, lights, and cargo cameras as well.

“The other thing that we're doing is adding not only the predictive analytics that predict if there's going to be a problem, but also remote diagnostics,” Hand said. This would allow Thermo King to continuously monitor reefer trailers for situations that would stop them from keeping their set point and potentially losing a load. Providing these kinds of alerts would allow fleets to “take action in a more advanced and proactive manner than in the past,” he concluded.