An east anglian haulage company has foiled thieves trying to steal three Hi-Ab cranes and a lorry thanks to its deployment of Siemens Datatrak's automatic vehicle location (AVL) system.
The haulage firm had been using Datatrak AVL over the last four years to keep track of its fleet of 50 Hi-Ab lorries, all of which are on general hire. This has allowed the most conveniently located vehicle to be despatched to site when needed, optimising the firm's efficiencies for end users.
Following an overnight break-in at one of the company's depots, it was found that cranes from three vehicles had been removed and then stolen using a fourth vehicle. The Datatrak system traced the vehicle to a road in Doncaster, but when the police arrived on scene the cranes had disappeared. Datatrak was able to 'tell' the police that the lorry hadn't stopped on its journey, and the cranes were found hidden in a nearby scrap yard.
With a wide range of fitting options for any vehicle, even if thieves suspect that their stolen vehicle is being traced it's extremely difficult to find and remove the vehicle locator.
Source
SMT
