TravelCenters of America installs GPS on service trucks

TravelCenters of America LLC — a leading travel center business in 41 states and Canada operating under the TA and Petro Stopping Centers brands — has completed its fleet-wide installation of GPS tracking technology on its RoadSquad fleet of more than 400 emergency road service vehicles. The install will allow emergency roadside assistance responders to reach downed truckers quicker, according to the company.

"Our GPS technology allows us to know exactly where to find the downed driver and provides service technicians that drive our emergency service trucks with detailed directional information to the breakdown site,” said Tom O'Brien, TravelCenters president & CEO. “Our national dispatch center knows exactly where everyone is; that allows us to provide more accurate arrival time and status information to downed drivers, lowers our response times and gets our customers back in business faster."

RoadSquad service trucks are driven by qualified technicians from TA Truck Service and Petro:Lube locations across the country, which employ more than 2,500 technicians that hold more than 1,500 ASE certifications.

Each RoadSquad truck is equipped for, and its technicians trained to handle, a multitude of road side issues, not just tire and fuel issues, O’Brien pointed out, offering “the broadest scope of roadside services offered by any travel center chain.”

O’Brien said TravelCenters has invested significant capital in the new system, which also provides critical RoadSquad fleet maintenance, operation and driver performance data. “This data is critical to optimizing in-service time of all of the vehicles in the RoadSquad fleet, further enhancing the ability of the nation's largest owned fleet of emergency roadside vehicles to respond to customers' needs and get them back on the road. This, I believe, is what TA and Petro do best — help drivers optimize their business, even in the face of a breakdown," he said.

Professional drivers can reach RoadSquad by calling 800-824-SHOP (7467). Drivers with iPhone or Android smartphones can call RoadSquad with a touch of a button through TravelCenters' TruckSmart mobile app. A smartphone's location services will allow the driver to provide the exact latitude/longitude coordinates of the breakdown to RoadSquad dispatchers.