In recent years, the trucking transportation industry is looking at IT and ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) with growing expectations to improve their business performance and efficiency. Most companies in the industry are, however, small- sized. Therefore, it is not easy for them to introduce IT or ITS because of restrictions on their financial and engineering staff resources. Considering such circumstances, this paper has developed a truck operations and management system that is less cost burdening to small-to-mid sized truck companies. The effects of the system were also evaluated through field experiment that was carried in cooperation with several trucking companies. Finally, some issues were discussed for the system to be widely used within the industry.
Abstract