International Truck and Engine’s new Aware Vehicle Intelligence, a comprehensive telematics offering, was introduced Tuesday at the Homeland Security Summit in Washington, D.C.
International is the first commercial truck manufacturer to outfit its medium- and heavy-duty trucks with technology that can include electronic theft-deterrent and integrated tracking systems.
With the International Aware Vehicle Intelligence program, an access code must be entered within seven seconds of engine startup or the engine will shut down. The seven-second delay is a safety feature for drivers who may have to move a truck a short distance in an emergency situation. If the code is entered incorrectly too many times, it can be programmed to send an alert to the cell phone of a fleet manager or other official.
AmeriGas Propane, the nation’s largest retail propane marketer serving 1.3 million customers nationwide, already uses a variation of this theft-deterrent technology to safeguard its new fleet of propane trucks.
International Aware Vehicle Intelligence allows authorized individuals to monitor trucks in real-time via the Internet. The system tracks a truck’s exact location, direction of travel and speed. It also can set up a geo-fence – a virtual electronic boundary on a map where trucks should not cross.
