Telematics partnership brings changes to Detroit Connect

Zonar’s Android-powered tabletZonar’s Android-powered tablet

Daimler Trucks North America is realigning it Detroit Connect telematics offerings with Zonar Systems.

Detroit Connect will transition the branding of its Visibility fleet software under Zonar’s Ground Traffic Control, assuming the Ground Traffic Control fleet tracking application product name. In addition, the on-board tablet will be branded as Zonar’s 2020 tablet.

Zonar will now manage all Virtual Technician subscriptions, including renewal processes, starting later this year. Detroit’s Virtual Technician on-board diagnostic system will maintain the same branding and will remain under the Detroit Connect umbrella.

The shuffling comes after last month’s announcement that DTNA had become a minority investor in Zonar. Both companies will continue to operate as separate business entities, but will leverage their new relationship to co-develop new products for DTNA customers.

“It’s key now to turn the customer experience into real-time,” said Friedrich Baumann, DTNA’s senior vice president, aftermarket. “Detroit Connect is a significant part of that in combination with the tools that we also employ from Zonar. We are developing a proprietary game-changer in the marketplace because it will provide unique real-time, open-environment software features that no one else can provide relative to our Detroit powertrain.”

Virtual Technician is standard with a two-year subscription on all DTNA vehicles with Detroit heavy-duty engines and is backed by a 24/7 call center. The system captures a log file with 75 seconds of data, 60 seconds prior to a fault code and 15 seconds after.

“Rather than looking at a single snapshot in time, this provides all the contextual information we can give our customers and allows us to determine a root diagnosis when fault codes link together,” said Lauren Attinasi, telematics training analyst for DTNA.

Ground Traffic Control is available for order through DTNA dealers on those same models. A factory-installed prep kit for the 2020 tablet is available on Freightliner Cascadia trucks with Detroit heavy-duty engines, and will be available on Freightliner vocational models, Western Star trucks, and Cummins-powered Freightliner and Western Star trucks later this year.