\u201cThe seven-way [J560] should have been obsolete many years ago,\u201d says Jim Epler, general manager at Phillips Connect Technologies. \u201cFleets want expandability way beyond 10 years. They are already talking about 30-pin connectors. From Phillips\u2019 perspective, we\u2019re trying to come up with a standard that everybody will want to go with.\u201d<\/p>\n Photo: Jim Park<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n In the early days of smart trailers, Epler says, it was tough to get all the suppliers to agree on connectivity standards. They all came in with their own sensors and analytics and telematics devices. But Phillips and several other companies started offering central telematics hubs that work with multiple smart-trailer products.<\/p>\n \u201cThese things eventually get driven by the customers, and they told us they were not going to have four or five different cellular devices on their trailers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n However, Epler notes that as customers start to experience the benefits of connectivity, they want more and more of it. \u201cYou offer them 10 and they soon want 30.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of what customers want can be handled by wireless connections, and they are bypassing the constraints of the J560 through telematics. But there are limits to how far that will take us. Conventional wireless communication is too slow for the demands of future connectedness needed for autonomous vehicles, for example.<\/p>\n Before the smart trailer technology can reach its full potential, the industry will have to settle on a few core technologies that will enable effective and reliable future connectivity between tractors and trailers \u2013 while maintaining backward compatibility and future growth potential. That will require a lot more imagination than dreaming up new things to do with trailers.<\/p>\n For perspective, there are about 6 million trailers in service today. About 23% of them had some sort of telematic capability in 2019, says Paul Menig, CEO of Business Accelerants and chair of two new Technology & Maintenance Council task forces charged with future-proofing tractor-trailer communication and future technological standardization. That number is expected to swell to about 42% by 2022.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, we are building 225,000-300,000 new trailers a year, with 12- to 20-year life expectancies. Technology lifecycles, however, are much shorter, notes Charlie Willmott, CEO of WillGo Transportation Consulting.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we were to start building nothing but state-of-the-art smart trailers today, it would take 20-25 years to replace the existing fleet. But by then, today\u2019s technology would be long obsolete and we\u2019d have to start all over again,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The scope of the challenge is daunting.<\/p>\n Do we need a 30-pin connector? Will the 15-pin J2691 they use in Europe suffice? Will we settle on something entirely different? Epler says some type of upgraded wired connection will be necessary to connect the tractor\u2019s CAN (controller area network) to the trailer to enable two-way communication for cameras and various other sensing devices. He thinks there\u2019s also room for more wireless connections, but there\u2019s a tradeoff.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think that everything needs be wired, but with more wireless sensors come more batteries that you\u2019ll need to change out over the life of the trailer,\u201d he says. \u201cFleets don\u2019t want to swap out batteries when they have a sensor go out. We built our IntelliSense harness with pigtails all over it to connect to different sensors so that you don\u2019t have to have everything wireless.\u201d<\/p>\n We are seeing the first stages of what Willmott calls \u201cinnovative dysfunction.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere are so many choices, and so many possible directions, that there\u2019s a tendency to just go back to the basics, and hope that somebody else will figure it out and let you know later,\u201d he jokes.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s some truth to that. Every supplier and OEM with some skin in the game, plus the customer, wants a say in how this unfolds. The tractor-trailer connection will need to be backward-compatible to maintain connectivity with the 6 million pieces of rolling stock already out there. At the same time, it needs to be future-proofed for any emerging technologies, such as the massive data transfer rates that will be required for autonomous vehicles. There will need to be some cost-effective retrofit possibilities as well. And of course, interchangeability will be foremost on many fleets\u2019 minds.<\/p>\n Without adding another connector, we can’t add something as simple as an ultrasonic sensor on the rear of a trailer to prevent backing damage, much less backup cameras. Photo: Jim Park<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Adding to the challenge is the fact that the telematics universe is about to change as cellular providers phase out 2G and 3G networks and migrate to 4G LTE and 5G<\/a>.<\/p>\n One possibility is a tractor OEM acquiring a trailer manufacturer and building a proprietary electronic architecture \u2013 something Willmott sees as a distinct possibility.<\/p>\n In the fall of 2020, Menig and Willmott formed a collaboration called eSmartt (an acronym for enhanced safety, maintainability and readiness through technology), dedicated to researching and understanding new technology tools for the transportation industry, and the many complex issues around future technological standardization and equipment interchangeability.<\/p>\n \u201cESmartt is not is not the answer; it\u2019s the search for the answers,\u201d Willmott says. \u201cWe\u2019ll be surveying all the stakeholders to get some perspective about moving intelligent systems forward.\u201d<\/p>\n They plan to begin with trailer rental and leasing companies, which represent a healthy chunk of the trailer population. They are also developing surveys for different carrier audiences, such as private carriers, truckload carriers, and the less-than-truckload sector, as they all have very different business models. They will be speaking with full-service truck lessors such as Ryder and Penske, as well as system and component suppliers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe feel that if we can collect and analyze their thoughts on the path forward, then on a combined and aggregate basis, we might be able to find some common territory,\u201d Willmott says.<\/p>\n There are a lot of people to talk to.<\/p>\n Many of the suppliers that will be putting systems onto trailers of the future, particularly braking systems, are global, Menig says. \u201cThey have some ideas of how to solve these problems. The people that provide the trailer harnesses and the trailer lighting have some ideas as to how they can improve things. Then we have the multitude of telematics suppliers who also have ideas about what should be done.\u201d<\/p>\n Wheel-end manufacturers, tire makers, and tire-pressure monitoring and inflation suppliers have some ideas for solving at least part of the problem. \u201cAnd then there are people who produce connectors and cables between the tractor and trailer that are also concerned about what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n Work has already begun in earnest, with the Technology & Maintenance Council convening two new task forces in the S.7 Trailers, Bodies & Material Handling and S.1 Electrical study groups, led by Paul Menig, to work on the problem. Menig hopes to have a report by 2022 that will point the industry in the right direction.<\/p>\n Replacing the J560 connector with something that offers potential for future expansion, but is backward-compatible and retroffitable, while allowing all and sundry into the game, and delivering something customers will be happy to pay for, will be one of the greatest challenges trucking has ever faced.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n by Jim Park<\/a><\/p>\n Source: https:\/\/www.fleetforward.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The audit is a key tool to know the overall status and provide the analysis, the assessment, the advice, the suggestions and the actions to take in order to cut costs and increase the efficiency and efficacy of the fleet. We propose the following fleet management audit.<\/p>\n Photo: Jim Park Smart trailers can give fleets unprecedented access to the secret lives of trailers, but future connectivity needs will change the way we connect to trailers.\u00a0\u00a0 The smart trailer concept is still in its infancy, and already the potential seems almost limitless. Over the past five years, trailers have gone from boxes on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[325],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9223"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9225,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9223\/revisions\/9225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/fleetimages.bobitstudios.com\/upload\/trucking-info\/content\/article\/2020-12\/smarttrailer3-web-ajp-__-720x516-s.jpg\")
Too Many Trailer Connection Possibilities<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Without](\"https:\/\/fleetimages.bobitstudios.com\/upload\/trucking-info\/content\/article\/2020-12\/smarttrailer2-web-ajp-__-720x516-s.jpg\")
ESmartt: The Search for the Answer<\/strong><\/h2>\n
CUT COTS OF THE FLEET WITH OUR AUDIT PROGRAM<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/advancedfleetmanagementconsulting.com\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/04\/nueva-ley-auditoria.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFLEET MANAGEMENT AUDIT<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"