- Nightline delivers with the help from Satcom Technology Ltd and Aplicom A1 Trax
- Temperature sensor solution by Aplicom
- Predict your communication costs in advance
- New Garmin navigators for trucking professionals

One of Ireland's largest private owned courier companies, Nightline, has since 2000 used Satcom's services to protect and manage its deliveries. Currently A1 Trax is part of Satcom's main anti hijack system. Satcom specialise in the protection of high risk and high value goods in transit. They offer a range of anti hijack solutions for vans, trucks and trailers and all alarms are monitored by their 24/7/365 monitoring centre through their own “Discovery” software and mapping package. Customers such as Nightline use the same software to manage their fleet. One of the new features recently added to the software allows Nightline's own customers the ability to track where their load is through a web link for the duration of that specific run.

A reliable and security featured tracking solution is helping Nightline to offer their services to their own customers. The service is realised with Satcom SW together with Aplicom A1 Trax HW. "We are pleased to continue working with Satcom and the reliable solutions and after sales services they offer. At the moment several different tracking and security solutions are available to us from one easy to use software application with updated mapping." says John Tuohy, MD of Nightline. John also stated that “we wanted a company to work in partnership with us and who could make a long term commitment to our business with good quality products”.

Throughout the years a range of Aplicom products have been used in Satcom's services. Noel O'Connell, MD of Satcom Technology says that they enjoy a good working relationship with Aplicom and have done so since 1994. "Their willingness to listen to what we and ultimately to what our customers want on top of their first class after sales services makes our job a little easier to get on with" continued Noel.

Founded in 1992, Nightline Ireland Express is the largest privately owned express courier delivery service on the island of Ireland. The service is available to customers within the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and to customers in Great Britain who have an express delivery requirement to all parts of Ireland. Nightline offer premium nationwide express courier delivery services throughout Ireland. Nightline Ireland express is operated through Nightlines fully owned and operated network of seven delivery depots and every town and village in Ireland is served by Nightline every working day and on Saturdays where available. Nightline Ireland Express has grown since 1992 to become the largest privately owned courier network in Ireland with full end to end control of all deliveries door to door. "We don’t work with third parties or franchisees, we own our depots and operate a world class service with service levels consistently exceeding 99% reliable on time delivery. Our market leading technology sets the standards for the industry. Every package is scanned up to seven times from point of pickup to point of delivery and every Nightline delivery van is tracked by satellite." explains John Tuohy. The Nightline web based track and trace system is updated in real time giving up to the minute delivery status at every critical step. Nightline is using the Satcom's anti hijack and theft-solution to guarantee the shipment reaches the end-destination un-tampered as well as offering a full fleet management solution.

See more from Satcom Technology www.satcomtechnology.com and from Nightline www.nightline-delivers.com

The increasing requirements for cold transports by the insurance companies, customers and end-customers force transport companies to improve their cold chain control. Aplicom's temperature sensor solution offers the possibility not only to measure the temperature inside refrigerated vehicles but to also alarm the driver and/or the office if there are significant changes in the temperature. Easily perishable products are transported in the correct temperature all the way, and the driver can quickly react if the temperature is decreasing or rising alarmingly. In a case where the refrigerator is broken the cargo can be unloaded and loaded in another vehicle.

Also medicine transportation needs an efficient temperature control. Most of the currently available vaccines must be stored between 2ºC and 8ºC to maintain their potency. The most common reasons for vaccine spoilage are refrigerators that are either too warm or too cold for safe vaccine storage, as well as vaccines being left too long out of the refrigerator.

Aplicom offers its customers a possibility to calculate a communication cost estimate of using A1 in their solution. By filling in information of snapshots and type of data the customer receives an estimate of the average amount of data (snapshot data + protocol overhead) sent by A1 in a month using different transport methods. The price for the communication depends on the network provider's pricing and the data estimate gives good possibility to find out which operator to select and what monthly costs can be expected using certain communication protocol.

With A1 devices it is even possible to optimize the snapshot size and this way to reduce the communication costs significantly. The customers receive the data counter from Aplicom sales upon request.

Aplicom has included new Garmin nüvi models into its product portfolio. The Nüvi 255W and Nüvi 465TF have now also been tested to work with A1 and are offered by Aplicom. The Nüvi 465TF has functions designed especially for trucks and features specialised routing options and truck friendly points of interests.

The routing will be based on truck size and weight and even has options for trucks with hazardous materials in cargo. When the user turns on the nüvi 465 for the first time they will be asked to set up their vehicle profile. The profile can be altered at any given time to reflect load or material information. Multiple vehicles can be saved in the unit for a fleet operation. Warning signs will pop up if the user drives into an area near the limits of their vehicle profile. The user will be prompted with a message on screen. Critical warnings popup in a red colour to warn the driver. In the case of a low bridge or an item outside the limits of the vehicle profile a red indicator will appear with a red warning message. The nüvi 465TF warns of different road restrictions and conditions, such as truck forbidden roads, risk of grounding, sharp curve, lateral wind etc. Additional free truck attribute data will be provided until the end of 2010.