Gate-to-gate

There are plenty of companies offering tracking systems for trucks, trailers, railcars, or other shipping assets, but now shippers and manufacturers have another tool to help curb billions of dollars’ worth of cargo theft.

Edmonton-based Safefreight Technology has patented a GPS-based telematics platform designed to give shippers product security control from gate to gate. Safefreight’s SecurityGuard hardware and SmartFleet software can tell the shipper if a truck driver is speeding, if a trailer door is opened when it shouldn’t be, warn of brake or engine problems, check routing, and even set off alarms if something isn’t right.

“What sets us apart is we incorporate additional elements–door-contact sensors, thermal sensors, brake wear, engine diagnostics, locking mechanisms, and immobilization,” says Curtis Serna, CEO and founder of Safefreight. “Sometimes it’s not a matter of people taking stuff off a trailer, but people putting on stuff that doesn’t belong. We’ve even got sniffers to distinguish whether there is biohazardous material.”
Serna founded Safefreight in 1998 as an exclusive distributor of truck-trailer tracking systems offered by Maxxal International of Calgary. “We told them we need to enhance the technology incorporating a telematics component,” says Serna. “They disagreed, and resolution came by Safefreight acquiring that company.” Serna says the company then expanded into “asset behaviour, and monitoring and controlling those assets, as opposed to just providing mere location information.”

Ray Moschuk, Safefreight’s senior vice-president, says the SecurityGuard and SmartFleet system offers shippers a way to reduce insurance costs. “A lot of theft that occurs is inside–if the truck stops for a little while, the doors open and some product is taken off the top and the driver doesn’t know what happened sort of thing,” says Moschuk. “Now, we can lock that up and take the driver out of the equation.”

Today, Safefreight is still in the commercialization process. But it has 240 investors and can provide a list of corporations that are interested in taking part in Safefreight’s development. Potential clients or partners include trailer-maker Featherlite, and security giants Pinkerton and Securitas, as well as State Farm Insurance.