Titanium Transportation Keeps an End-To-End Eye on Trailers

Titanium Transportation has adopted the Blackberry Radar, an end-to-end asset management system that provides more benefits than simply tracking trailers on the move.

In an effort to boost efficiencies and increase equipment utilization in its growing fleet, Ontario-based Titanium Transportation decided to modernize the way it tracks its more than 1,200 trailers. Add to that a desire to increase customer and driver satisfaction and improve the company's overall return on investment, and you have a very strong argument for trying a new asset-tracking technology from an unexpected supplier.

Once known as an innovative smartphone provider, about two years ago BlackBerry began studying how it could leverage its technology assets to improve the operational efficiency of the cargo transportation and logistics industry. The result was the Radar, an end-to-end asset management system.

“We found BlackBerry Radar very compelling, because it has capabilities beyond traditional trailer tracking that we look forward to using in the future as we expand our use of the solution,” says Marilyn Daniel, Titanium's chief operating officer. “We have already been able to save driver time by locating empty trailers on customer property.

“With BlackBerry Radar, we know exactly where our trailers are on our yards and on our customer's yards,” Daniel says. “When you are dealing with thousands of trailers in a yard, being able to pinpoint the trailer location immediately saves us a lot of time getting drivers and loads on and off the road quickly.”

And while the system was not purchased as a theft deterrent, Daniel appreciates the ability to secure the status and location of each trailer. The transmitted data is encrypted and the system then authenticates the fleet's devices and cloud endpoints before sending anything up to the cloud. This protects both company and customer data.

The device might also allow the fleet to cut costs through equipment ...Read the rest of this story

‘Welcome to Washington…’

President Trump's 2018 Budget Photo: White House Office of Management and Budget

Anyone hoping they'll learn lots more about that trillion-dollar infrastructure investment plan President Trump first dangled before the nation back on the day after the election has to be sorely disappointed if they read the foundational document on his federal budget proposal just put out by the White House.

Grandly titled “A New Foundation for American Greatness,” the Fiscal Year 2018 budget document runs over 50 pages.

But less than a single printed page is devoted to “an Infrastructure Plan to support $1 trillion in private/public infrastructure investment.”

What's more, or less as the case is here, the discussion about infrastructure is presented in the most general of terms.

The only mention tying in highways comes in a laundry list of what the plan aims to fix: “surface transportation, airports, waterways, ports, drinking and waste water, broadband and key Federal facilities.”

Rather than seeking substantial increases in federal spending on infrastructure from Congress, the message is loud and clear that Trump sees the private sector riding to the rescue of America's failing infrastructure.

The administration's goal is “to seek long-term reforms on how infrastructure projects are regulated, funded, delivered, and maintained. Simply providing more Federal funding for infrastructure is not the solution. Rather, we will work to fix underlying incentives, procedures, and policies to spur better, and more efficient, infrastructure decisions and outcomes.”

The document claims that the president's target of $1 trillion in investments will be “met with a combination of new Federal funding, incentivized non-Federal funding, and expedited projects that would not have happened but for the administration's involvement (for example, the Keystone XL Pipeline).”

The budget calls for $200 billion in federal outlays “related to the infrastructure initiative,” which appears intended to work as seed money for public-private partnerships (P3) projects, ...Read the rest of this story

Oil plunges 5 percent on disappointment with OPEC cuts

Oil prices tumbled 5 percent on Thursday as the extension of output curbs by OPEC and other producing countries disappointed investors who had hoped for larger cuts, leading to the biggest daily percentage slide in crude prices since early March. At Thursday's meeting in Vienna, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and some non-OPEC producers agreed to extend supply cuts of 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) until the end of the first quarter of 2018. Brent crude oil (LCOc1) settled down $2.50, or 4.6 percent at $51.46 a barrel.

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