Communications and Tracking for Construction Vehicles

Advanced communication and tracking systems (ACTS) have potential to improve the efficiency of vehicle fleets such as dump trucks, concrete trucks, low boy trailers, and scrapers. Commercial applications of ACTS in long distance trucking and inventory/materials tracking have been successful. ACTS can be seen as having significant prospects in construction fleet management, especially for complex operations where dispatchers must know vehicle locations and communicate constantly with drivers. This paper describes three advanced systems: signaling systems, continuous communication and tracking systems, and radio frequency identification. Three conceptual examples follow that show how these systems can be implemented and demonstrate their potential value in construction fleet management.