Mesilla Valley Transportation moves quickly with mobility tech

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Mike Kelley, chief technology officer of Mesilla Valley TransportationMike Kelley, chief technology officer of Mesilla Valley Transportation

Mesilla Valley Transportation (MVT) has grown from a small regional trucking company, located in the Southwest, to nearly 1,600 power units. The company is known for testing and validating fuel-saving products as well as implementing new technologies.

Its latest technology implementation is Platform Science for electronic logs and fleet mobility applications that include Drivewyze PreClear.

“We’re on a constant mission to improve,” said Mike Kelley, chief technology officer. “We look at inefficiencies or challenges and utilize technology to improve our processes within our company, and within the truck.”

On the truck side, MVT owner Royal Jones “can tell you how just 1/10th of a mpg improvement can impact our bottom line, per day, and per year, even factoring in the cost of fuel,” Kelley said. “When we had a fleet average of more than 7 mpg 32 years ago, fleet owners couldn’t believe our numbers. We’re at 9 mpg now for a fleet average, and we have plenty of believers.”

The company keeps its trucks moving with weigh station bypass, Kelley said. “This is a low-hanging fruit when it comes to improving fuel efficiency and improving delivery time,” he continued. “We feel weigh station bypass is a win for us, and a win for our drivers who get to pull more miles.”

Mesilla Valley implemented Platform Science in 1,600 trucks within 76 days. “That timeline is unheard of in our industry – it was a herculean effort,” said Kelley.

The company was able to activate Drivewyze PreClear immediately with the platform. According to Kelley, the transformation in weigh station bypass – moving from transponder-based technology to one that uses cellular data, has made a huge impact on the company.

“We’ve gone from something that gave us a green light or red light for bypasses, to one that gives us not only bypasses, but information and data on our performance and how weigh station bypass benefits our company.”

With Drivewyze PreClear, Kelley said the company no longer has to worry about transponder inventory, and the occasional movement of transponders from one truck to another, when a driver is re-assigned.

Each truck averages 15 bypasses per month, which saves “a tremendous amount in time and fuel — all documented. The time savings alone – with the advent of ELDs and the clock ticking on drivers — makes bypass even more important,” he said.

According to Kelley, drivers appreciate Drivewyze PreClear. “We’ll hear about it if a new truck isn’t immediately turned on with Drivewyze,” he said.

“From an ease of use standpoint, our drivers like the 2-mile notification as they approach a weigh station, then the 1-mile notification. And, they like not having to change lanes like they did before. With transponders, our drivers had to move to the inside lane in order to be scanned. That’s a subtle but big difference, especially if traffic is heavy.”

Kelley said MVT is in the process of turning on Drivewyze’s Safety Notifications, which provides alerts on high rollover areas, low bridges, and mountain alerts (steep grades, brake check areas, and runaway ramps).

The platform and Drivewyze’s connection with states, “allows them to leverage information and geo-fence areas to give our drivers alerts. If this can help our drivers prevent accidents, why not?”