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trailer world Issue Two 2013

The successful English commercial vehicle hire company, Hireco, sets up flexibility and trailer telematics on its young fleet.

    Issue Two 2013  21 Technology To support its customers, Hireco, founded 15 years ago, contin- ues to invest in new trailers, fitted with the latest technology. “We are always looking for technology that helps our custom- ers to reduce their costs further”, says James Smith, Managing Director at Hireco. The strategy speaks for itself. According to the Managing Director, no other UK rental company has such a young fleet. This year a total of 600 new trailers have entered the fleet. And, there’s more to come! Smith says: “Our customers like using the newer vehicles. Why should they take an older model, if they can get a new one for the same price. With this strategy, we are among the strongest growing rental firms.” According to Smith, none of the Hireco vehicles are older than seven years. The ones that have already been running for between five and seven years are up for sale and are not in the rental fleet. In this way, with its 5,000 trailers, Hireco has secured itself a place among the five biggest rental companies in England. Managing Director Smith is also willing to increase the fleet to 8,000 vehicles within the next few years. Then, Hireco would be the third biggest commercial vehicle rental company, behind the big players of the sector, TIP and Ryder. A proportion of the growth comes from additional servic- es involving the vehicles. This includes trailer telematics. Only recently, Hireco has fitted 150 new trailers with TControl, the telematics system by idem, a BPW subsidiary. Smith is enthusi- astic about the system: “TControl is fantastic. It not only locates the vehicle, but at the same time it checks using EBS-data whether the permissible axle loads are exceeded.” The rental vehicle com- pany focuses the basic telematics equipment on the location. Thus, the renters always have the opportunity of knowing where their vehicles are. This is connected to further services. Should the driver on his mobile receive an error message, he can look immediately to see where the next service workshop is located and can inform them. Additionally, the firm has other values for itself and the customers. If detected, it is possible for the TControl unit to send warning messages via e-mail or SMS to the company’s fleet or transport team. Furthermore, the transport companies can also train their drivers, if they find that the data is too often be- yond the threshold values. Fresh vehicles for the fleet Hireco, the UK based commercial trailer rental company, wants to offer its customers the best technology.

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