Lower fuel consumption, less wear to the trucks and limited pollution to the environment is the result when the company Greater Than SA introduces the LeanHaulage™ philosophy in the transportation sector. Driver behavior are monitored and evaluated to reveal the causes for waste. Management and drivers cooperate to improve company processes.

A database plays a key role in Greater Than's offer to haulage contractors all over Europe.

The result is an estimate of the amount of waste and an indication what's causing it. Waste is for instance unnecessary fuel consumption, wear to the tires and stressful drivers. Another way to describe waste is the difference between the actual performance in driving the truck and Best practice. Best practice is a benchmark calculated from information in the database.

Thus waste is also a potential profit increase to the haulage contractor. 

- A typical company in the transportation sector with a 2% profit has the possibility to increase the profit to more than 5%, we have learned from experience, says Anders Lindelöf.

The evaluation is the starting point for improvements. Greater Than leads the way to more efficient use of the fleet by coaching drivers, supporting management and facilitating the cooperation and understanding between the two professional groups. This is how the LeanHaulage™ philosophy is introduced in the company.

The result in terms of less waste and increased profits are visible instantly due to the fact that data from running trucks are monitored continuously and evaluated against prior results.

- In a typical scenario the return on investment is reached within the first month, says Anders Lindelöf. 

Greater Than has the knowledge in how to support management and coach truck drivers to reduce waste but needed a technology partner. In every truck equipment for monitoring the driving needs to be installed. The motor speed, truck speed, brake force, power take out and fuel consumption need to be transferred to a server in order to evaluate the driving.

Hectronic was contracted to develop the automotive mobile router to perform this task. The computer should log and transmit data. It needed to withstand vibrations and be as small as possible for easy installation behind the dashboard in the truck. E-type approval according to EMC-regulations for automotive components was part of the requirements.

Daniel Skaborn, the Project manager at Hectronic explains why the AT91RM9200 processor was chosen for the project.

- We liked it because it's a low-cost and simple processor. There are versions for extended temperature range at a reasonable price and it has a lot of useful interfaces.

The possibility to use Linux as the operative system under the development tool Helix was another reason to choose this ARM9 processor from Atmel. Helix is a tool to configure, build and maintain embedded Linux systems.

Read more about Helix, toolkit for Linux configuration »

A challenge was adaptations to various truck models. Greater Than's customers use old trucks and new ones in common makes and uncommon ones with a variety of communication protocols. The computer needed to be able to be installed in every conceivable truck model.

- There are three main groups of trucks, says Daniel Skaborn. Old trucks that use discrete signaling, those that use CAN and the ones that utilize the J1708 communication protocol.

There are two major CAN variations, FMS and ACTROS. Scania and DAF are two examples of manufacturers that use FMS in their trucks. Mercedes uses ACTROS. J1708 is a serial bus standard in trucks from Volvo.

JACK, which is the name of the automotive mobile router, supports all the mentioned protocols and that was an important requirement to Greater Than.

- You can come across odd trucks in which required data is accessible only in mixed formats, says Daniel Skaborn. The automotive mobile router is able for instance to log brake force and fuel consumption discretely and the truck speed in J1708.

It adds up to a challenging number of combinations of signal formats that need to be handled. Software engineers at Hectronic developed a set of drivers with maximum flexibility for analogue inputs, digital I/O, the two CAN variations and J1708.

J1708 is an asynchronous serial bus transferring separate packages of data, messages. It would be possible for the processor to separate the individual messages from each other but it would consume processor time unnecessarily. To free the processor from that tedious task that functionality was included in the J1708 driver instead.

According to J1708 packets of data are separated from one another with a period time in which the data bus is in an idle state and all the transmitters on the network are turned off. The J1708 driver developed at Hectronic identifies the silent period of time between messages and adds start- and stop characters to the flow of data accordingly.

-  We have adapted an existing UART driver for the processor to use a timer to identify the spacing, says Daniel Skaborn.

JACK is mounted behind the dashboard in the truck. Installation requires configuration, which is performed on a laptop connected to the router through an adapter. iButton functionality identifies the driver and a GSM antenna is used for an Internet connection using GPRS.

Installation takes place when trucks aren't on the road, evenings and weekends. Software updates are downloaded remotely over the GPRS connection.

Measures are taken to assure operation after the update has been installed. The prior version remains in fact operative in the router memory. The booting procedure includes a functional check of the new software version. Should the new version of the software not pass the test the prior version is automatically chosen instead.

The working trucks need not to be affected by the installation. Safety is a top priority.     

- It's a black box behind the dashboard and is visible to the driver only from a log-on-button on the panel, says Anders Lindelöf. The equipment shall not introduce any distractions to the driver.

The placement of the computer behind the dashboard decides the level of vibrations that the equipment is exposed to. Some positions are less vibrating and others more. The alternative places to mount it are limited.

There are two main advantages casting the computer board using plastic. The physical dimensions of the encapsulated mobile router are kept to a minimum. It gives freedom of choice where to mount it, the ability to choose a spot easily accessible and with low vibrations.

Cast hardware tolerates higher levels of vibrations. A bare computer board was compared to one cast in plastic in a test.

- We wanted to test the endurance to vibrations to an extent that damaged the bare board for sure and left the cast one unaffected, says Daniel Skaborn.

Regulatory approval doesn't require mechanical tests, but definitely that EMC immunity and emission are measured and are within the maximum levels. E-marking according to the 2004/104/EC directive is mandatory for components to be used in vehicles. The Technical Research Institute of Sweden performed the tests and JACK was registered at the Swedish Road Administration. The approval is valid in the European Union.

Development of a test system for production was included in the project. The test system is in place at the manufacturer, production has begun and Hectronic has delivered the first batches. Installation by Greater Than has picked up pace. Anders Lindelöf is satisfied.

LeanHaulage™ saves the environment from carbon monoxide pollution. Politicians have turned out to be positive towards the idea. The Minister of Infrastructure in Sweden, Åsa Torstensson will give her support in a talk during an upcoming forum for carbon monoxide pollution.