IOC, Reliance set to expand truck tracking facility

IOC in talks with GSM operators; Reliance to use Infocomm platform

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) plans to roll out its truck tracking facility across the country. It has initiated talks with various GSM (global system for mobile telephony) operators in India for the purpose.

IOC had launched the facility in Chennai in March.

"While in Chennai, we launched the truck tracking facility for major fleet owners with collaboration with Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) and a Chennai-based company, eLogistics, we are preparing to roll out this facility across the country. We are in advanced stage of talks with some GSM cellular operators with whom we will offer this facility and BSNL is one of these operators," A M Nanjundan, executive director of IOC, said.

Meanwhile, Reliance Industries (RIL) has formally kicked off a similar facility in select states in association with the group's telecom arm Reliance Infocomm. It plans to shortly reach out to all parts of the country, with hub offices at each of its proposed 500 retail petroleum outlets.

"There is little technical difference in the services being provided by IOC and RIL. While IOC has opted for GSM services, we are using our own CDMA network spread across the country. We can now serve fleet owners loyal to RIL for buying petroleum goods better. We are using the automated vehicle locator (AVL) system, which is a culmination of global positioning system (GPS) and GIS data, to enable tracking of consignments," said RIL source.

With IOC's facility proposed to be launched nationally, fleet owners who possess the IndianOil Xtra Power prepaid card would be able to be in touch with their truck drivers. The drivers would in turn be able to make fast communication with their employers and family members.

IOC's truck tracking system operates on GSM technology which sends automatic locational data along highways across the country by way of SMS at predetermined intervals.

"These messages are conveyed through signals of BSNL and communicated to a back-end applications server of eLogistics for decoding as far as our services in Chennai are concerned. This information can also be accessed by the fleet owner through electronic mail system and a website in which he needs to login only," said a source in IOCL, elaborating the facility.

With BSNL having a true national seamless coverage, which most other GSM cellular operators lack, it is likely that IOC would finally tie up with BSNL to take this offering across the country.

Sources also said that talks are on with at least two other major GSM operators, Airtel and Hutch.