Remote trailer visibility through in-trailer, camera-based cargo sensors paired with fullness & floor space analysis can unlock your trailer’s full revenue potential and reduce inefficient operating spend like never before.

A truck load of inefficiencies

With roughly 20 billion of the 160 billion driving miles (or 12.5%) driven each year by transportation trucks estimated to be “empty” with no paying freight on the trailer, there is indisputably room for improved efficiency when it comes to trailer utilization. 

At an average per mile operating cost of $1.38 (Truckers Report), that means empty miles are costing trucking companies over $27.5 billion a year!

The average total yearly cost of operating a single commercial truck is $180,000 (Truckers Report) and on average, each truck runs roughly 130,435 miles each year. With an average of 12.5% of miles traveled per truck being empty, that means companies are spending an avoidable $22,500 per truck in empty operating miles!

Now expand that number by the number of trucks that aren’t empty, but are running at less than full truck loads – how much trailer revenue potential is being lost due to inefficiency?

With the added complexities of increasing driver shortages, and the need for tighter margins to win business, making each truck mile count becomes an even more important proposition.

Still, empty miles are only the tip of the inefficiency iceberg. There are also shipper inefficiencies like trailer readiness and improper loading that lead to growing driver detention time. On average, truck drivers spend 2.5 hours waiting to be loaded or unloaded (Business Insider).

In addition, there are avoidable costs associated with incorrect customer claims and even cargo theft. 

So the question begs, what can companies do to avoid these inefficiencies and how can technology help?

Cameras provide the full picture

While there has been technology on the market for years that helps you pinpoint the GPS location of each trailer, there’s been no automated way for you to know the available fullness and floor space of a trailer or have the ability to see if it’s ready, what’s inside it or how it’s been loaded. Traditionally, you’d have to rely on the customer or your driver to ball park availability or readiness once the driver arrives on site.

More recently, in-trailer cameras have entered the market that allow for remote monitoring of all trailers – but not all cameras are created equal. 

Some cameras simply capture an image and can detect whether or not a trailer has cargo, but not how much cargo.

While more advanced cameras, supported by artificial intelligence, can analyze high quality image capture to determine trailer volume and floor space availability (Learn more about Compology’s trailer monitoring system).

Just as Compology has brought new levels of efficiency to waste operations, its combination of high-resolution cameras capturing in-trailer images and artificial intelligence providing fullness and floor space measurements brings unprecedented efficiencies to the transportation and shipping space.

By knowing what’s inside a trailer, how full it is and exactly where it is, you’ll be able to easily adapt the way you manage everything from trailer and driver dispatch to your customers’ shipping practices, while reducing theft and false claims.

So what does this all really mean for your trucking operations?

It means visibility into every trailer, automated historical and day to day data capture and the ability to unlock  each trailer’s full review potential. Remote trailer monitoring helps you:

• Improve your asset utilization
  • Pair LTL or TL loads with the trailer that generates the most profit. Know when a truck is running “empty” or with available capacity and direct it to the nearest load.
  • Send drivers to the right trailers, when they’re ready, to limit waiting times.
• Automate and streamline detention billing practices, eliminate invoice disputes and reduce theft
  • Automatically tracking trailer arrival, loading, unloading, detention and departure data and use time stamped images as proof points. 
  • Up-to-date and historical images help with theft deterrence by keeping an eye on your cargo. 
• Make data-driven purchasing and distribution decisions
  • Know exactly what inventory you have available, where and how full your deployed fleet trailers are.
  • Apply utilization data to drive how many and what type of trailers to buy or lease. With each trailer running anywhere from $35,000-$70,000, controlling inventory costs should be a top priority. 

But I already use fleet tracking software…

The good news is that Compology is compatible with any software through our API. And if you’re looking for a ready to go, all-in-one telematics offering, our partner of choice is SkyBitz. With SkyCamera Powered by Compology, SkyBitz now offers cargo visibility and accurate, timely fullness and floor space measurements directly in the SkyBitz InSight web application.