ORLANDO. PeopleNet is giving American Trucking Assns. Management Conference and Exhibition attendees in Orlando this week the opportunity to see a demonstration of the company’s new Driver Center display platform, dubbed PeopleNet BLU. The new 7-in., full-color display is designed to provide audio and video capability in the truck cab, enabling the delivery of multi-media content to the driver on the road.
BLU will support all current PeopleNet applications, including eDriver Logs, PerformX Engine Connectivity and PACOS Geofencing. In keeping with PeopleNet’s philosophy of “openicity” (an open software environment), BLU is also designed with hardware extensibility, surplus memory and the power to run other advanced technology applications, such as text-to-speech, navigation, in-cab video and Internet access.
One of the first multi-media applications to be offered was also announced at ATA--ProTREAD interactive driver training from Instructional Technologies, Inc. In partnership with PeopleNet, ITI will be able to deliver preemptive, targeted driver training in the cab in response to real-time driver performance data collected from trucks on the road, such as hard braking events, speeding or excessive G-forces.
“We are very pleased to partner with ITI…” said Brian McLaughlin, PeopleNet’s executive vice president of marketing, product and sales. “Safety has always been a top priority. This partnership enables PeopleNet customers to actively pursue safety in a new, effective way.”
In the near future, BLU will also deliver spoken, turn-by-turn directions--simultaneously shown on a moving map, according to the company. Text-to-speech applications that will enable drivers to hear text messages in multiple languages are coming later. In early 2008, the company plans to introduce many additional partner applications.
