News IC Bus, Edulog Connect OnCommand WRITTEN BY RYAN GRAY |
RYAN@STNONLINE.COM I
magine a world where eliminating 80 percent of on-road school bus failures translates into a 30-percent reduction in mainte- nance costs. Dream no more, said Navistar, as it announced expanded availability of its OnCommand Connection engine diagnostics solution that promises increased control over routes and driver training as well as reduced costs to end-users. OnCommand Connection, or OCC, first became available
on IC Bus models in 2014. Te core OnCommand Connection product is a remote-diagnostics software system that uses the OCC Telematics device or works with devices from other telematics providers, explained Sean Slyman, Navistar’s director of connected services for buses. Te system provides real-time access to vehicle health reports and offers numerous additional technologies to help bus customers manage their fleets and operations. Now, Navistar is connecting its expertise in vehicle manufactur- ing and telematics with Edulog’s knowledge of school bus logistics to make the open-sourced, engine diagnostics tool available on all OBD-HD school buses, regardless of the model, built since model-year 2000. Slyman added that 60 percent of all truck and bus VINs in OCC are not Navistar vehicles. “With OnCommand Connection, open-architecture technolo- gy solutions that OnCommand Connection uses provides all bus fleets regardless of size the opportunity to integrate the services they need and want—without paying for bundled products they don’t want,” he added. “Tis is what sets it apart from other tech- nology providers.” Edulog President Jason Corbally agreed. He told STN that this agnostic approach taken by Navistar gives IC Bus a leg up on the competition and brought Edulog off the sideline and into the GPS-OEM telematics game. “It’s never going to be in Edulog’s interest to promote one bus over another. We have enough clients that we don’t want to dictate the kind
of bus they use,” he said last month, adding that the company contin- ues to value its partnership with GPS providers Zonar and CalAmp. “(OCC was) extremely complementary to our suite of products. And what was so impressive with them is how agnostic they were. Tey were very clear that this works on any type of bus.” Corbally added that it typically costs about $150 per bus to add aftermarket GPS units which connect to vehicle sensors that pull engine and vehicle diagnostics and telematics data. Te goal for a company like Edulog, he said, is to analyze routes and bus stops in real-time. OCC removes the added equipment costs for all bus models, and specifically for IC Bus models with the Navistar Diamond Logic body controller that gauges eight-way and four-way lamps, stop-arm deployment, door open and close, and turn signals. “We no longer have to rip apart a bus to wire the sensors,” Cor- bally commented, which enables Edulog to determine bus stops “in a completely different way.” “Routing and GPS have somewhat become the same,” he added. “Having the ETA of bus arrival is crucial. When we install GPS, whether our route management or another, we see that 10 to 20 percent of our stops never get serviced. Being able to find all these stops that we’re routing for kids eligible for transportation, but that GPS shows aren’t actual stops, we can remove these. We can use GPS to allow routing to be more accurate in real-world operations.” He also said OCC allows Edulog to better compare planned
versus actual routes as well as late versus early arrival times and share the data with parents. “Te main product districts want is a parent portal to let them know where the bus is and when it will arrive,” he added. “Ninety percent of parents are millennials. Tey do everything from their phones.”
Corbally also said OCC offers gamification tools to monitor behind-the-wheel behavior of drivers such as fast acceleration, hard braking and hard turns and turn the data into training oppor- tunities. “Tey’ve done amazing things in gamification in other industries and this allows Edulog to bring the technology to school buses quicker and cheaper,” he added. “With gamification, what we bring is route adherence, logging in at correct times, scanning kids on properly. We are substantially better together.” Meanwhile, Slyman said over-the-air-programming through
IC Bus and Edulog provided STN EXPO Trade Show attendees in July with information on the OnCommand Connection partnership.
an OnCommand Link device is now standard on all IC Bus models that are powered by Cummins engines and built at the Tulsa, Oklahoma plant since March. When connected to Wi- Fi, OnCommand Link downloads a bus health report into the OCC dashboard and can complete an engine calibration when connected via Wi-Fi through an app. Te feature is available on all 2017 model-year and newer
Cummins engines and the device is available in the aftermarket for Navistar engines 2010 and newer.
20 School Transportation News • SEPTEMBER 2017
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
