he history of trucking technology has been a history of monoliths: systems that have been unwieldy, inflexible, and often a hefty financial weight to the fleets using them.

From the early days, driver workflow and communication were munged together with telematics, to create a best-of-no-worlds “all-in-one solution”—mobilecomm. Its user experience is slow and clunky compared to the slick interfaces of modern consumer mobile phones—yet mobilecomm devices are more expensive to purchase, and more disruptive to change or upgrade.

Once mobilecomm became established as the de facto way of doing things, innovation only occurred within the limitations of this paradigm. And so the functionality and user experience available to drivers using mobilecomm has not significantly advanced.

Mobilecomm devices lack much of the functionality that drivers want—and what they do offer is often very basic. That functionality is also broken into a “dashboard” of apps that drivers must jump between in order to see messages, routes, load info and so on. This means your drivers spend unnecessary time context switching, instead of using a single interface that ties together the various functions they need—a clumsy and frustrating user experience. The upshot is lost productivity and greater driver turnover.

Systems like this are bad for fleets too because it means you are dependent on a single vendor for all the functionality you need—regardless of how well their implementation works for you. Mixing and matching various solutions is not possible, and customizing your existing solution is often very difficult too. Most critically, a single-sourced technology vendor exposes you to fleet-wide problems, because there is a single point of failure.

None of this is actually necessary. There is absolutely zero technical reason that telematics has to be integrated with a workflow product from the same vendor. And there is absolutely zero technical reason why this in turn must be built into a particular hardware device that the driver uses in his cab. The tasks a driver needs to take care of each day are often connected to telematics, but they are not the same thing.

Trucking has a lot of catching up to do. For most modern industries, sprawling all-in-one solutions cannot keep pace with agile modular tools that focus on doing one thing well. Rapid innovation is driven by a curious mix of strong competition and healthy cooperation between solution providers who provide one tool that excels at one job, and plays nicely with others. Customers identify the best solutions for their needs, and create modular technology stacks: agile systems comprised of high-quality components, which are perfectly tailored to their own use cases.

What would this modular approach look like applied to trucking?

This is not a theoretical question. Such systems do exist. Things change drastically when you simply separate telematics from driver workflow…

Separation of telematics from driver workflow & in-cab devices

Workflow and telematics can, and should, be separate applications running on separate devices—devices that talk to each other.

When you separate workflow from telematics, you are able to create self-contained tools that do one thing well. This means you can use a mix of best-of-breed technologies that suit your fleet’s operational needs.

Again, this is not mere theory. Platforms like Eleos do exactly this, and with the new OpenCab standard, workflow and ELD apps on the same Android device integrate easily with one another. This is real technology that exists right now, and has real benefits for the fleets using them.

More flexible, agile, customizable, affordable

The benefits of modular workflow platforms over traditional mobilecomm are extensive, offering far more efficiency and control to fleets.

Drivers are happier, more productive

When the workflow app is a first-class citizen in every cab, each respective vendor can put their all into producing top-tier solutions. This means rapid innovation that reduces driver downtime, eliminates frustrating annoyances, and increases efficiency.

Essentially, by removing the “comm” from the mobilecomm device, and turning it into a separate modular commodity, fleets can ensure their drivers get more done faster. With modular workflow solutions, drivers can execute and document their work more quickly, they find themselves making and receiving fewer phone calls, and they end up doing less data entry. That all equates to less stress and more time on the road. 

Moreover, because the system works on any iOS or Android device, drivers can work on their smartphones when they can’t be in the cab. This lets them reclaim what was previously dead time, and enjoy far greater flexibility. Fleets credit this kind of freedom with vastly increased driver morale and job satisfaction, and some say it has reduced turnover by more than 30%.

You should be able to intermix whatever technologies you want, with little to no disruption—and without having to change every other component along with it. That would be considered a no-brainer in the IT departments of most other industries. Yet trucking has been very slowly catching up. 

When fleets can choose and combine best-in-class components, they can build solutions that fit their own businesses, and not rely on a “one size fits all” approach.

What’s the catch?

There really isn’t one, aside from the psychological hurdle of changing from the accepted, “standard” way of doing things. But with many fleets now successfully using a modular approach—and getting far better results than their competitors who are still relying on the “received wisdom” of last century—fear of the unknown is no longer a reason to hold back. The tech is proven.

The answer for all but the most determined hold-outs is a no-brainer.