EP Telematics Real-time System for Tracking Fleet Performance

Introduction EP Telematics Real-time System for Tracking Fleet Performance

EP’s GPS Fleet Management is an innovative system that allows you to manage your fleet and rental activities in an effective and efficient manner. Available on PC, tablets, and mobile devices. The system tracks data for truck and battery usage, allowing users to monitor and analyze assets conditions, providing remote diagnostics and improving the efficiency of fleet management.Our Fleet Management System works as a one stop shop from truck location tracking, battery efficiency monitoring, to remote diagnostics and fault detection for asset management. With this built-in GPS tracker, rental and fleet management companies are able to make good use of their products and services for immediate growth of their businesses.

ASSET TRACKING

The GPS Fleet Management System provides a fleet overview in real-time and monitor your valuable fleets when they are on the road and off.

UPTIME BOOSTING

Easily monitor the status and condition of your assets remotely. The system provides Statistical analysis of the team’s daily working hours, charging times of battery, and truck/battery fault records.

BATTERY MONITORING

The BMS system on the battery ensures the safety of EP lithium-ion battery, protecting it from overheating or overcharging. The Telematics fleet management system connects to the BMS and can wirelessly monitor the battery condition real-time. In the graphic you see for example the typical charging curve of a lithium-ionn battery in daily operation. With charging during breaks and lunch time, you can boost the uptime and productivity of the battery and truck.

PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE

The GPS fleet management system can be easily connected to your mobile devices and enables remote diagnosis to improve the efficiency of after-sales service.

REMOTE START-STOP

The remote start-stop function enables fleet management companies to activate and disable the trucks remotely. It is great for fleet rental business as the fleet owners are able to set leasing hours and dates to each truck and get notified when leases expired.

Frequently Asked Questions

Features

Is it via Wifi or 4G?

Our system is through 4G.

What if I don’t have a 4G connection in my warehouse, or when the connection is not that good?

Then we do not have the real-time information available. As soon as the truck drives out, or as soon as it has access to 4G, it will quickly upload the data to the cloud. So it stores the data and it uploads it when it has a connection.

How precise is the GPS positioning?

Positioning accuracy can vary. In general, our system is not made to have extremely precise positioning. Our system is more based on the fact that you rent out a truck to a customer and you want to make sure it’s still there.

Can telematics be used in lead-acid batteries?

We focus on li-ion. And the system helps to sell the advantages of li-ion.
For bigger projects we can discuss to put on lead acid, contact your EP sales representatives for more information.

Can telematics work on IC Truck?

No. We do not offer this system on IC trucks, unfortunately. We are offering more insights with Li-ion technology and we keep doing so to help more operators go electric.

Is telematics system available to use on stackers and electric pallet trucks?

Generally, step one is to connect to the lithium-ion batteries. Step two is to connect to the Zapi controller. At the moment, only the truck that has a Zapi controller is connected to the system. It can be equipped on all trucks with li-ion batteries and Zapi controllers.

Does the system only work on Zapi controllers?

Yes. All our max range lithium trucks produced are using Zapi controllers. At the moment, our data collection point is Zapi controllers.

What information can I get from the truck? For example, can I monitor the load of the forks? Can I see when does the truck drives loaded and when empty?

The system is connected and placed on the battery. And because the BMS of the battery is connected to the controller, we have all the information that is available on these to controllers. So we can measure the power usage of the truck, which gives an indication of how intensively the truck is being used. So we can not measure the load, we can monitor the power usage of the lift motor.

How can I know the truck being used heavily or lightly?

To know if this truck is being used heavily, we monitor the usage of the lift- and drive motor. When you look at the graphic with the dark and the green parts, the light green means that in this time the truck has been used for less than half an hour / there has been a motor running in this time for less than half an hour. The dark green parts means it has been used intensively.

Is the report of telematics graphical or written?

Both. When you look at the data we get from the system, you can download excel information, which you can then pivot or use in any kind of calculations. We have different style of data collection and showing you different graphics, which you can export into a power point to your customer. The highlight is to show it to your customer in real time. You can use screen shots to bring the key messages to your customer. We mainly use the excel reports for the aggregated data, like working hours. Both factors can be combined to make a nice report to your customer.

Can a truck have more than one RIFD access card?

For the card system please see the manual on this. There are different kinds of cards. In general the system works like the key of your car. One card for one truck. For two trucks you need a 2nd card. For one truck multiple cards can be activated. The second option is a card which has access to every EP truck with this system.

Several drivers will have access to the same machine and the machine will record which driver is on the truck. When you log on to this machine, the truck will know you as a driver. It will start and monitor that you have been driving that machine.Can the key be reprogrammed?

No. The key, once assigned to a truck, from that moment belongs to that truck. You program this yourself. You will get a master card. Once you swipe your master card and then your driver card, this key belongs to this truck. You cannot assign this key to another truck anymore. The key is inexpensive. Order a new key if you need.

How about privacy for the driver?

This is your choice, also depending on local privacy regulations. We only provide a key tag with a number on it. You can see the aggregated data. The fleet manager can know which driver is having which number, so you can know which person has been driving this machine.

How many machines can be connected to the telematics system for effective monitoring?

The system has no limitations. In general, the more data you collect, the better it gets. Because you have more to compare with and you can balance the usage of all trucks.

Will this work in negative temperature environment like cold storage or freezer?

The telematics system has no problem with it. When the truck is working, the telematics system is working as well.

Do you have shock detection system?

No. At the moment, we focus on the sales promotion side of fleet management and the promotion of lithium-ion technology. We might offer this as well in the future.

Service

Do you have an annual subscription? How much is it?

There is a yearly subscription. The end user price for the system at EP equipment is 599 euros. This comes with a 5-year plan included for Europe. There are three zones worldwide. We put the right SIM card in for every zone. Wherever you are, you will get the truck with the SIM card and the software, which is ready to work. Contact your sales contact for more information on your region.

Can you foresee TCO in the software program?

You can contact your EP representative to get the TCO template and export the telematics data to excel. You can then use these excel formats to add your monthly cost for the truck and make your calculations and graphics to your customers. We are happy to help you with optimizing the excel export. We take in extra ideas on how we can optimize our system further. It would be great if you would share your customer reports as good examples.

Can we order telematics separately for retrofit?Because we have some spare trucks in stock

Yes. In general it can be installed on all truck models after mid. 2019. You can buy this system separately. It’s very simple to install the system. For example you can use it for your demo´s. After the demo you can easily plug out the system from the truck and use it on your next demo machine or new rental machine.

What is the price for the retrofit kit?

It’s 599 euros. Installation takes approximately 15 minutes. And of course it needs to be activated and assigned to the online account.

Applications

How do I get access to the trucks?

After the trucks are assigned to the right account, you can just log in to the system, click through the menu and use it. Be careful because you can change the parameters on trucks. You can pull reports. The system is more focused on the dealer and less focused on the operator.

Does the data from the system pass through a third party server before arriving at the monitor? Is there a more private option to keep the data between the truck and the monitoring device?

No, the data is stored in the cloud. We don´t have private options to do this at the moment. We do have the Bluetooth app. You need to be close to the truck to get the connections. There´s no data uploaded into the cloud.

What happen if customer disconnect by himself telematics from the machine?

There´s not much you can do against sabotage. You can see the last time the customer has logged on. If there is no logon for longer time, you know the system is not having a connection which might either be caused by no 4G (and GPS) connection or the system is sabotaged.

I rent forklift out to customer for several hours and then I plan to cut it off i.e. after working 100 hours if they don’t pay next rate. Customer didn’t pay and trucks stopped. Then customer disconnected telematics. Will forklift start working again?

There is a way to bypass the system. You could decide to put the antenna under the bonnet so they don´t see it. Just check that you still have 4G connection.