Continuing a tech-first tradition in trucking

Building on a legacy of a fleet success

Ohio-based fleet Continental Express is using IoT innovation to win business and make its drivers and customers happy.

For Continental Express, the perfect pair of trucking and ORBCOMM technology has helped cultivate four decades of success.

“Gosh, we’ve been with ORBCOMM for as long as I remember,” says Bradley Gottemoeller. “Technology has come a long way. It used to be a lot simpler even five years ago. Now, everything is data-driven; everyone wants answers now and often. When customers are asking for an answer, it’s already too late.”

Serving the food services industry

Continental Express has over 550 trucks, 1250 reefer trailers and 100 dry trailers, with 9 terminals across the country and more planned in 2024.

“We mostly haul for the food service business, working with Fortune 500 companies. We make deliveries to both stores and distribution centers anything from milk, yogurt and chicken to frozen pizza, flowers and ice cream,” says Gottemoeller.

Keeping drivers happy with technology

Continental Express—named one of the Best Fleets to Drive For in 2023 for the third consecutive year by CarriersEdge—believes making their drivers’ lives easier with tech goes a long way for retention.

“We try to take as much stress as possible off our drivers. They have a tough life; they’re away from their families, they’re stuck in traffic all the time and we’re asking them if they can check this or check that.”

This led to Continental Express building an iOS app in-house, which they use to display ORBCOMM data through an API for drivers.

“We built our app as a one-stop shop. We take our ORBCOMM data and push it into the app. It provides peace of mind to our dispatchers and allows our drivers to check reefer data without pulling over.”

When it comes to ORBCOMM IoT solutions, Continental Express is well-equipped for their dry and reefer trailers. The ORBCOMM refrigerated trailer monitoring solution enables fleets to make data-driven decisions that improve cold chain efficiency, inform logistics, help ensure regulatory compliance and more. Plus, it can help monitor rapid fuel loss for theft and help inform accurate fuel invoicing. To simplify reefer management for our customers, our refrigerated trailer tracking solution sends alerts when active reefers are turned off, cargo temperature deviates from its set range, assets leave their location without authorization and more. Plus, with access to historical temperature data, fleets can use ORBCOMM data to minimize spoilage claims and help ease FSMA compliance challenges.

Continental Express also uses ORBCOMM’s comprehensive trailer tracking solution—featuring the GT 1200 solar-powered asset tracker which can be installed in as little as 10 minutes—for complete asset visibility. With this solution, fleets can use their telematics data to improve asset utilization, boost driver productivity and streamline operations.

Our trailer tracking solution includes a customizable analytics platform where fleet managers can dive deep into the fleet data that matters most to them via reports and dashboards.

Cutting costs with remote monitoring capabilities

Rising costs in the transportation industry have been felt by all fleets, including Continental Express.

“Our costs are up over 20% from last year, more than that two years ago,” says Gottemoeller. “Fuel, reefer unit parts, trailers sitting for a year because parts are on back order, you name it.”

One way that Continental Express has fought back against these skyrocketing costs has been with their tech-driven approach to trucking, according to Gottemoeller.

“I remember when I was young, my dad would have people physically check trailers. Every Sunday, they’d drive through the yard, stopping at every trailer and checking to make sure it’s running right. We still rely on driver inspections, of course, but remote monitoring makes it so much easier. It saves us significant time and money, which we can spend elsewhere.”

Remote monitoring can also help with combatting cargo theft, which costs the trucking industry up to $30 billion a year according to the FBI.

“We’re part of the OTA (Ohio Trucking Association) and the ATA (American Trucking Association) and cargo theft is often brought up by other carriers. Fortunately for us, it isn’t much of an issue: our yards are locked, and our trailers are always placed in yards with guard shacks. Plus, having reefer trailer location data, not just temperature data, has been very helpful in finding misplaced trailers.”

Temperature data can help refute wrongfully rejected loads

While spoiled loads are top of mind for virtually every reefer fleet, Gottemoeller brings it back to his company’s slogan.

“It’s no secret that spoiled loads can hurt business relationships and result in our customers not trusting our equipment,” says Gottemoeller. “The technology that we rely on, specifically our temperature monitoring capabilities, play a big role in limiting the risk of spoiled and rejected loads. “

“Plus, we have someone dedicated to tracking temperatures and OS&Ds [overages, shortages and damages] using a spreadsheet that updates every 15 minutes with ORBCOMM data.”

“What’s nice about having the data available is that when rejected loads happen, the report can help prove innocence.”

More growth on the horizon

With 2023 being a record year for Continental Express in miles and loads hauled, what’s next for the carrier in 2024—besides celebrating 40 years in trucking?

“We’re looking to continue to grow, hoping to go over 43 million miles in 2024 to have another record year,” says Gottemoeller. “We’ve grown steadily over the past five years, and we want to add another terminal or two in 2024.”

With a slogan like “Driving the future—one mile at a time”, it’s clear that Continental Express is far from finished investing in their business. ORBCOMM telematics technology can take fleets like Continental Express to the next level, enabling them to make decisions, manage operations and master their markets with the power of data.