Brodsky, Voice of Retrading, Passes Away

Harvey Brodsky, the longtime managing director of first the Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau (TRIB) and then the Retread Tire Association (RTA), has died in Pacific Grove, Calif. He was 81.

He died on Sept. 17 of complications from lung cancer, which he had been battling since March of this year.

"One of Harvey's many sayings has become a guidepost for RTA: 'Always be better than you need to be,' says Managing Director Jeffrey Parks, who knew and worked with Brodsky for 35 years.

He would also say, “There's never a wrong time to do the right thing, and there's never a right time to do the wrong thing.”

"All words to live by, every day," says Parks.

Brodsky was born Dec. 16, 1935, and raised in Philadelphia, "and like most guys from Philly, was a friend for life once he got to know you," says Parks. "He made lifelong friends there and he loved them all to the end.

"As a boy, he loved baseball, collected statistics, cards, news clippings and could name any player or team. He took his first job in his father Max's auto upholstery business, and was a devoted son to him and his mother, Gertrude, along with his sister and his brother Frank."

After a stint in the Army, he started his own company, a one-man upholstery business. "He sold himself door to door, to the finest and also the simplest restaurants and bars of LA, upholstering booths that would be occupied by the movie stars of the day, at Musso and Frank, Bordner's, The Rainbow Room, Formosa Café, places of Hollywood history, and countless more," says Parks.

Over the years, Brodsky shared stories of his encounters with famous people with his friends in the tire industry. He lunched with author Ayn Rand; met actor and future president Ronald Reagan on ...Read the rest of this story

Zonar Docs Streamlines Reporting for Small to Medium-Sized Fleets

Photo: Zonar

Zonar has announced the Zonar Docs image capturing solution designed to improve the paperwork management process.

The cloud-based technology is designed to improve operational efficiency for carriers and help drivers get paid faster by reducing the time it takes to deliver paperwork, including invoices, receipts, and more to dispatch.

“Zonar Docs is a natural addition to our smart fleet management offerings and reduces the substantial paperwork burden currently placed on fleet managers and drivers alike,” said Larry Jordan, chief product officer at Zonar. “The new technology builds on Zonar's aim to streamline fleet management processes.”

Zonar Docs works with Zonar Connect – the company's tablet that connects truck drivers and fleet managers – by using real-time mobile technology. Zonar Docs is an automated process and reduces the time it takes the paperwork to reach dispatch. The solution provides proof-of-load delivery for fleet managers and creates a web portal for dispatch to track and download materials. Zonar Docs is designed for use in small to medium-sized fleets.

Drivers log into the Zonar Docs application on the Zonar Connect tablet using Single Sign-On technology with their driver ID and pin. Within the app, they are led through a step-by-step guide for submitting paperwork for a delivery where they add photo documentation and submit to the database server from the road. Once the document is submitted, dispatch is able to view the material in the Admin Portal and approve it in real-time ultimately increasing operational efficiency for the fleet.

For more information on Zonar Docs, click here.

Zonar has also announced the initial integration of Continental's ContiPressureCheck, a system designed to measure tire pressure and send alerts in real-time into Zonar's fleet management software, Ground Traffic Control.

“Tire pressure is one of the most critical aspects of tire safety and removal mileage. Failure to properly maintain ...Read the rest of this story

Study: 3PLs continue to offer value, with technology the key

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Purkeys’ Aware system sends audio alerts through truck stereo

Purkeys has a new way to receiving audio alerts in truck cabs, which the company says is easier and more effective.

The wireless Aware connects with the speaker system in a truck's cab to route messages received from the telematics alert system, through the speakers. By using the truck's speakers, alerts are broadcast clearly, instead of through the smaller speakers of the telematic system tablet.

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Lytx Offers Enhanced Video Safety System

Photo courtesy of Lytx.

Lytx will begin offering an enhanced video monitoring system for commercial and government fleets that provides additional capability over its DriveCam product, the company has announced.

Lytx Video Services, which will be available by April 1, offers an in-vehicle video system that combines a cloud-connected event recorder and video cameras with new dashboard Lytx Workspace to provide more precise data for accident management.

The brain of the system is a new ER-SF64 event recorder that offers a driver-facing lens that captures 12- or 20-second exception-based video clips; an outside lens with continually recording video with an option to livestream video; a cloud-connected digital video recorder (DVR) with 64 gigabytes of memory; advanced sensors such as accelerometers to detect speed, gyroscopes to detect motion, and GPS to detect location; and compatibility with third-party PAL- or NTSC-based cameras.

The DVR can record up to 100 hours of footage, and up to 11 additional third-party cameras can be connected.

"The key is giving our clients the ability to easily go back to a specific point in time to see exactly what happened from any view they desire," said Brandon Nixon, Lytx chairman and chief executive. "This ability to see more — and therefore know and do more — about what's happening in the vehicle and in the field could completely transform how a fleet operates."

Related: Fleets Increasingly Adding Video Telematics From Lytx

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Tenneco seeks to grow its truck business

ATLANTA. Brian Kessler, who took over as CEO for Tenneco back in May, said during a press event here at the inaugural North American Commercial Vehicle (NACV) show that he believes the company's future growth through 2030 is going to be strongly tied to the commercial truck and off-road highway markets.

“Big trucks are a little more intriguing for us,” Kessler said. “Over the next 15 years more diesel engines will come under regulation than are currently under regulation.”

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Cummins seeks to capitalize on future trucking trends

ATLANTA. There are three main “disruptions” occurring within the trucking industry today, according to a presentation by Srikanth Padmanabhan, president of the engine business at Cummins Inc., here at the inaugural North American Commercial Vehicle (NACV) show: energy diversity, connectivity, and automation.

And he believes Cummins must deliver “diversified, dependable technology solutions to our customers at the right time” in all three of those areas – even if they are not directly engine-related.

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