Fleet Management System locates stolen truck

[kscarbel2]

Scania Press Release / March 20, 2015

Drivers love Scania trucks and, unfortunately, sometimes, so do thieves. When Czech transport company Duvenbeck Logistik had one of its 11 Scania tractor units stolen, it turned to the Scania Fleet Management System for help. As a result, the stolen vehicle was quickly recovered and returned.

When thieves stole a valuable Scania tractor unit from Czech transport company Duvenbeck Logistik last February, the chances of recovering it seemed slim.

Using what is believed to be an illegal duplicate key, the thieves removed the truck from the transport company’s holding yard near the town of Mlada Boleslav, north-west of Prague. By acting just before the weekend, they ensured it was three days before the loss was discovered. “The vehicle was quietly removed using a fully functional key,” explains Branch Manager Jiří Hríbal. “This was despite the regular key and all the spare keys still being in our office.”

When the loss was discovered on Monday, the police were immediately contacted and efforts made to locate the vehicle using the FleetBoard system that the company uses for fleet monitoring. Hríbal says this was unsuccessful as, “before the thieves drove off they disconnected all the electronics to avoid being traced.”

Help from Scania

But what the truck thieves hadn’t reckoned on was the power of Scania’s Fleet Management System (FMS).

Duvenbeck Logistik contacted Andrej Čech, Manager for the Scania Fleet Management System in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Using the system he was able to quickly establish the vehicle’s location and share this information with police.

“Tracking the vehicle using our Fleet Management System was not difficult,” Čech explains. “The system is usually used for vehicle location, route planning, evaluating driving style, as well as for remote diagnostics, and it’s standard on all new Scania vehicles.”

Police subsequently located the tractor unit in a former agricultural cooperative in the village of Bítouchov. “The thieves had already removed all of the equipment from the cab, including navigation gear, and removed corporate signs, cut off the labels with VIN codes and removed the license plates,” Hríbal says.

Back in service

The recovered vehicle is now being repaired at Scania’s Mnichovo Hradiště workshop and will soon return to regular service.

“I would like to thank Scania for their perfect and especially quick help,” says Hríbal. “They managed to save a vehicle of considerable value, but most importantly they have shown all thieves the potential we now have for tracking them.”

Scania’s Andrej Čech says he was pleased to be of service. “I am very happy that our systems don’t just help out in everyday work, but also in exceptional cases like this one,” he says.

Related reading: http://newsroom.scania.com/en-group/2015/03/20/scania-fleet-management-system-locates-stolen-truck/