Video Telematic Solution for Dangerously Parked HGVs

TU-Editor

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21st October 2022

Fleet managers concerned over heavy goods vehicles having to park in precarious locations are being offered a new solution combining telematics and video.

Californian company Lytx has announced a first-ever automaker integration collaboration with Daimler Truck North America using its video telematics system and camera solution integrated into select Freightliner and Western Star models. The company also revealed a parked vehicle trigger that helps fleets avoid risky parking on the side of a highway or on/off ramps.

Commercial truck drivers often struggle to locate a safe place to pull their large rigs over to park. They are often forced to park on the shoulders of interstates/highways or ramps if no other options appear available. This type of risky parking can increase the chances of collisions, serious injuries and financial liability risk for companies. The safety issue has received increased attention recently owing to an announcement by US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg that over $37M in federal funding has been awarded to expand safe truck parking in Florida and Tennessee.

Lytx’s solution, called Parked-Highway/Ramp, triggers when the Lytx DriveCam event recorder identifies a stopped vehicle for 10 minutes or more and assesses if it is located on the shoulder of an interstate or highway or on a ramp where other vehicles may be passing. The system then notifies the fleet manager so that they can intervene by sending nearby safe parking locations via GPS directly to their driver.

Rajesh Rudraradhya, Lytx’s chief technology officer, said: “With the incredibly insightful feedback we received from customers using the feature in its early stages, we were better able to iterate and refine the final version of Parked-Highway/Ramp, the first official experiment to originate from Lytx Lab and be publicly released.”