Mobile Communications
The world in your palm.
JOHN BENDEL
TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
Will he be able to make his 2 pm delivery appointment? The driver punches a few keys on his mobile phone and in a few seconds he checks for traffic reports on the specific Interstate he has to travel.
Okay, the last 20 miles through the suburbs are clear. There will be time for lunch and a leisurely call home.
A few more key punches and the driver tunes in to a list of truckstops near his stop. He doesn't have to read the list. Instead, he hears a simulated voice.
Ah, good. There's an ABC Truckstop. They have great barley soup and they're on the fuel network besides.
Now the driver hits a single button on the phone, connects instantly and tells his dispatcher 1,000 miles away he'll be in plenty of time for the delivery. And by the way, he'll be eating and fueling at ABC.
THE FUTURE AT HAND
This is one small example of what fleets can soon expect of mobile phones or wireless handheld computers, often called PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants). The scenario is very close to real.
Take our driver's one-button communication with dispatch half-a-country away. Wireless communications provider Nextel is working to expand the range of its Direct Connect two-way-radio-style beyond current regional limitations. According to Nextel, users of its Motorola cell phones will soon be able to Direct Connect back to their home region from almost anywhere in the country.
And the traffic and travel services that know our driver's location?
Soon all wireless service providers will be able to locate users and offer local information based on their own cellular technology. And if you don't want to wait, both mobile phone and PDA makers already offer models with built-in GPS (Global Positioning System).
But what about traffic and exit services delivered by voice?
That's here today, at least in part. Route-specific traffic reports are currently available over cell phones and PDAs through a company called MobileGates, Inc., which provides a number of sophisticated wireless technologies, including something called the MobileTraffic Personalizer.
According to MobileGates CEO Anthony Meador, the Personalizer is just that: it culls traffic and incident reports in 83 metropolitan markets for the specific routes selected by individual subscribers and delivers those reports wirelessly. In fact, reports can be sent to virtually any Internet-enabled and voice-enabled devices, wireless or wired, including WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) phones, PCs, TVs, PDAs, pagers, vehicle navigational systems.
However, the most appealing device for truckers will likely be the inexpensive mobile phone. Traffic alerts can take the form of text messages or email. Subscribers can read them on their device screen or elect to have them read by a voice simulator. Users can easily change their route selections remotely.
The service is available now from TrafficMobile at www.trafficmobile.com on the web.
BRINGING DATA DOWN TO SIZE
But that's just one service Meador's company offers truckers. The general idea, he said is to provide information in ways that work on small devices.
"We develop applications that require fewer keystrokes to get to the information that you want," Meador explained.
"On a cell phone or a PDA keystrokes are crucial because they don't have keyboards. Our applications are what we call personalized. We can take the information that is important to the user and bring it up to the top. We started out with the TrafficMobile Personalizer. We launched that with Nextel and recently with AT&T Wireless."
Meador said TrafficMobile can also provide dispatchers with critical traffic information they can then pass on to drivers. And since the information is available on a wireless phone, that means the dispatcher has some mobility as well.
A variation on MobileGates can access a fleet's tracking system and route traffic warnings to individual drivers as needed across a fleet, said Meador.
Traffic alerts in various forms are among the services soon to be offered by a MobileGates service called TruckingMobile.
"It's a total communications tool that we're getting close to releasing," said Meador.
TruckingMobile will be a kind of an Internet bulletin board for trucking companies. Fleets will be able maintain calendars, schedules and message centers on a MobileGates server where fleet managers will be able to easily post new information and edit earlier entries.
MobileGates will automatically translate their data into various formats so drivers and customers will be able to access posted information through their own device.
"For example, we have a full calendar and address book so if that changes for a particular trucker or particular customer, that person can call in on voice and get that change. They can pull it up on the wireless Internet. They could pull it off the Internet at a kiosk. They could pull it up on a PDA.
"It allows (fleets) to get to everybody as opposed to, hey, you have to go to the next truckstop and pull it up on the Internet. Or you have to pull it up on your phone because you don't have a PDA.
"It allows more flexibility particularly when you have numerous owner-operators and everybody doesn't have the same phone and everybody doesn't have the same PDA and everybody doesn't have the same way to access."
"This is kind of the core of our development platform. We've taken that and we're allowing trucking companies to get information out to multiple devices without a whole lot of cost involved," Meador said.
MobileGates is serious about trucking. According to Meador, the company is working on a service called ExitMobile. It's what our fictional driver might have used to learn what services and truckstops he would find at a particular spot along the Interstate.
MobileGates is also in discussions with providers of load matching and mapping for possible services to be delivered wirelessly to PDAs and cell phones.
"My feeling is the more technology that comes into the hands of the truckers the more they become like pilots," Meador said.
