How Fleet Managers Automate

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and magnetic induction are two ways of keeping the “human error” out of fleet management. Lori D. Denton finds out how these methods are working.

RFID Systems
Terry Pletcher, Product Development, at Care Trac in Columbus, OH, says his company has been using RFID as a tracking system for large and small fleets and state and city governments for about 2H years. The city government fleet has everything from cars and trucks to semis and tractors. Care Trac has between 5,000 and 6,000 vehicles using RFID.

Care Trac uses RFID to track information on engine hours and oil levels in the crank case. In the past, drivers would frequently fuel the truck without checking the oil level, and oil changes were scheduled based on normally recorded mileage. With RFID, the oil level is monitored continuously and oil changes are triggered every 3,000 miles.

Before RFID, all the information was collected by hand. Says Pletcher, “We sent someone out with a clipboard to record the mileage, which was very expensive. We had to spend days tracking down trucks, which was very time consuming. We also had a lot of errors, like not being able to read the handwriting of the person recording the information. Then, it would take two weeks to a month after the information was collected to get it processed.”

With RFID, Care Trac collects information every time a vehicle enters or leaves the fleet facility. The information is put into a maintenance log and there are no errors.

Pletcher notes that the RFID equipment is not cheap. However, he says that it’s been worth the cost. The company hasn’t had any problems, even in storms.

Greg Stewart, CEO of Grenley-Stewart Resources, Inc. located in Tacoma, WA, says his company owns and operates automatic unattended commercial service stations (cardlock) and truck scales. Stewart says Grenley-Stewart supports its customers and other oil companies with radio frequency odometer devices and unattended automatic radio frequency controlled truck scales. RFID has been in operation at Grenley-Stewart’s fuel station since November 1997.

RFID makes fueling easier for Grenley-Stewart by eliminating the need for the reader to input odometer readings manually. “We can detect a truck being misfueled. We can also detect an accurate miles per gallon number.”

According to the Washington State Department of Agriculture Weights and Measures officials, Grenley-Stewart Company is the first in the state to have a completely automated truck scale.

The trucks have a “smart tag” installed in the window, and the driver must follow the directions at the weigh station. The tag also has information about the truck including axle layouts.

“We do between 40 and 69 truck weights a day, with no employees at the weigh station, thanks to RFID. The savings in costs allow us to grow. We can also totally eliminate paperwork because all the information is captured by the tag and can be downloaded.”

Stewart says his company has not had any problems with its RFID system. However, he notes that the process was expensive initially because of the time it took to master the hard drive and create an operating system.

SAFFS components: receiver coil, vehicle data computer, odometer transducers and vehicle transmitter coils. Courtesy of Scully Signal Company.

Magnetic Induction
Mary Lou Adamowski, Marketing Communications Specialist for Scully Signal Company, Wilmington, MA, says that Scully manufactures an automated fleet fueling system based on magnetic induction (Scully Automated Fleet Fueling System (SAFFS™). It is programmed to receive and record vehicle identification, fleet identification, fuel type and total fuel received and odometer and engine hour readings.

The system has a coil/ring that goes on the fill pipe adaptor of the vehicle and a nozzle ring that attaches to the dispenser nozzle. The two rings communicate to each other. The ring on the vehicle is interrogated and sends vehicle identification information to the nozzle ring, which then knows if the vehicle is authorized to fuel.

“The system provides a secure transaction because the vehicle ring has to be recognized in order for authorized fueling to begin.”

Two forms of the system are offered: a land based form and a mobile form. The land based system allows the vehicle to fuel up at a fuel island. The mobile system allows a vehicle to fuel up from a traveling tanker truck at various locations, making the system useful at construction sites. The mobile fleet system improves the efficiency of the wet hosing process while capturing accurate transaction data that can be directly fed into a computer for processing.

The system is completely automated, with no human interaction. However, in order to work, the system must be installed on each vehicle. Scully Signal Company has been marketing the land-based system for three years and the mobile system for one year.

Kent Robinson, Director of Marketing for Gasboy International, Lansdale, PA, says Gasboy produces The Fuel Point System, which is also a magnetic induction system. He says that magnetic induction is different from RFID, because it is limited to transmitting over a smaller distance. The system uses antennas placed at the dispenser nozzle and the vehicle fuel pipe.

Robinson says a lot of fleets use this system, because they want to make sure the fuel is going into authorized vehicles. The fleet owner doesn’t want the users pulling up and fueling their own vehicle. Having the magnetic induction system at the nozzle makes certain that the right fuel goes into the right vehicle. If it’s not a diesel fuel vehicle, then the diesel fuel doesn’t turn on.

“Fleets are interested in the control aspect of the system,” notes Robinson. “They need to know the vehicle. The fleet owners want to know the type of fuel and the amount of fuel per vehicle using this system. The fleet owner can identify the driver, the vehicle and the odometer reading. Fleets base their preventive maintenance on odometer readings.”

The magnetic induction system, according to Robinson, has been used in Israel since 1986. Gasboy has been selling its magnetic induction system for the last two years.

The magnetic induction system has no driver interaction. The information is accurate and there is no hassling with cards and keys. However, the system tends to be more expensive than traditional methods, and installation work is involved.

Patrick Cunningham, Transportation Services Manager, University of Michigan, says the university has used a magnetic induction system for two years. The system uses the low frequency identification system for the fueling of 900 university vehicles.

Before the automated system, the University used a two card system: one card for the individual and one card for the vehicle. “It was a high maintenance system because people would lose the cards,” says Cunningham.

Cunningham says the new system is working well, “The tags authorize the vehicle rather than a person, so it’s secure. You just put the nozzle in and get gas, so the system is also customer friendly. The system won’t authorize when someone is trying to put in the wrong fuel. We also get an accurate odometer reading for every fueling, and we base maintenance on this reading.”

Cunningham says aside from the initial equipment being costly, the university has only experienced one other problem. “Sometimes somebody drives away with the nozzle, because it breaks away, which screws up all the wiring. But otherwise, we are happy with the way the system is.”

What is for tomorrow?
The experiences to date seem very encouraging to fleet managers who want to take advantage of the latest technologies in RFID, magnetic induction and other automated systems. What new and better applications are on the horizon? Watch future PE&T issues and see.

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