Rand McNally said its new DC 200 (at right) will available in December, while the ELD 50 (at left) is available now. (Photo by Sean Kilcarr/Fleet Owner)

Technology

Rand McNally unveils new ELD solution

Oct. 2, 2016

The DC 200, available this December, is designed for small- and medium-sized fleets looking to leverage existing Android devices to ELD compliance.

Sean Kilcarr

LAS VEGAS. Priced at $399.99 per unit, with a basic compliance plan starting at $24.99 per month, Rand McNally believes its developed a small “low cost” electronic logging device (ELD) package called the DC 200 mainly for small- to medium-sized fleets, though Ravi Kodavarti, the firm’s director of product management, stressed that any size fleet can deploy it.

“It comes down to taking the pain away from ELD compliance,” he explained to Fleet Owner during press conference here at the American Trucking Associations (ATA) annual conference.

“We want to continue making things easy to use; to provide intuitive interfaces for drivers,” he added. “It’s not complicated; the DC 200 requires a one-cable install and a simple app download to use.”

Details regarding the new DC 200 include:

The DC 200 is 5-in. long, design to sit on a truck’s dash and plug into a truck’s J-Bus diagnostic port via a single Y cable. The device works with both 6- and 9-pin, type 1 and type 2 ports.

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Ravi Kodavarti

The DC 200 is “tri-modal” meaning it can communicate via cellular, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi.

Built-in cellular removes the need for a separate cellular data plan and it can be used as a Wi-Fi “hotspot” as well.

Through that cellular, Bluetooth or proprietary Wi-Fi connection, the device sends driving data to the complimentary Rand McNally DriverConnect app, where drivers may view current hours of service (HOS) data as well as driver vehicle inspection report (DVIR) documents.

Canadian hours of service rules also are supported via the device.

The DC 200 also sends data back and forth to/from the DriverConnect portal via a proprietary dedicated cell modem. The device is self-reliant and does not use data from the hosting Android device.

The DC 200 also provides fleet management tools such as IFTA fuel-tax reporting, messaging between drivers and fleet managers, and forms-based messaging in workflow management.

The DC 200 can be used in conjunction with Rand McNally’s ELD 50, released about six months ago, with provides Bluetooth “plug-and-play” for owner-operators so they can be connected into the ELD “back office” of the fleets they work for.

About the Author

Sean Kilcarr | Editor in Chief

Sean previously reported and commented on trends affecting the many different strata of the trucking industry. Also be sure to visit Sean's blog Trucks at Work where he offers analysis on a variety of different topics inside the trucking industry.