Scania has announced it has en tired the ‘age of the App’ revealing it has introduced an App, called ‘Scania OnScene’, which it says will help get trucks and buses going more quickly and safely after an unplanned stop at the side of the road.
Hard-working heavy vehicles do sometimes need roadside assistance. Scania has been supporting its customers’ uptime for decades via its company-owned Scania Assistance service. Additionally, its 60-strong independent authorised dealer network around the country also has mobile crews ready to lend a hand.
Scania understands that the side-of-the-road operating environment may provide hazardous working conditions for its responding technicians. In Australia, with often big distances to travel before reaching the stranded operator, technicians need to manage their fatigue and driving hours to stay safe on the journey out and back.
The Scania OnScene App provides a start-to-finish health and safety guide, in real time, that not only provides protection for technicians, but allows greater transparency for operators and vehicle owners, understanding the cause and nature of the problem as well as the solution to getting the vehicle back into service.
Frances Sotogi, Scania Australia’s National Network Development Manager, says the Scania OnScene App requires the technician to undertake a risk assessment prior to starting work on the vehicle, to ensure they are not putting themselves in undue danger at the side of the road, at night or in times of poor visibility.
Scania has trained all its roadside assistance technicians around Australia in the use of the OnScene App.
“We operate a team of dedicated and experienced, highly-skilled Scania Assistance technicians from our eight company-owned branches located in capital cities who are able to use the Scania OnScene App, but we have also shared it with our independent authorised dealers who also operate roadside assistance vehicles,” Frances says.
“The App collects significant amounts of information regarding each call-out, from identifying the vehicle, driver, owner, location, and the reason for the call,” she says.
“The Scania OnScene App maps the prospective journey, notes the time and distance involved and enables Scania Assistance to remotely monitor the technician’s progress on route, throughout the repair and the return to base or home, ensuring their safety,” Frances says.
“The technician fills in his starting location and destination, and checks in when arriving at the scene. They perform a risk assessment to determine if it is safe to work on the vehicle in-situ or if it needs to be towed to a workshop. The vehicle’s identity is confirmed, and the technician performs an initial diagnosis to determine if it can be repaired with the tools or parts on hand.
“When the repair is completed, the technician confirms this within the App and communication is despatched to all parties. Photos may be uploaded to App, identifying damage or the failed components. The call-out is completed when the technician confirms he has returned safely back to base or his home.
“At the end of the call-out incident there is a complete record of all the work undertaken already saved digitally, which reduces the amount of post-recovery work and form-filling the technician needs to do before returning home or to the branch or dealership,” Frances says.
Scania Assistance technicians are under time pressure, and can be called out at any time of the day or night, and may have to travel for significant distances to reach a vehicle that requires their attention.
“It is not uncommon for a technician to travel many hundreds of km to reach a stranded driver, prior to any work commencing. Via the App, the base monitoring the callout keeps in touch with the Scania Assistance technician from the start to the finish of the job, adding a friendly ‘over-the-shoulder’ contact to ensure their safety and security on the scene and on the drive home. As a result, the Scania Assistance technicians have the comfort of knowing that someone is always looking out for their welfare, which not only improves the appeal of the roadside assistance service to staff, but reduces their paperwork-load, too.”
Scania supplies its Roadside Assistance crews with late-model vans and utes fitted with active and passive safety systems, as well as ensuring that parts and tools are stored in a safe manner.
“For the vehicle operator, the Scania OnScene App provides verifiable peace-of-mind that the vehicle is being attended to and exactly what costs are incurred. Additionally, the estimated time of completion of the repair allows the operator to inform their customer as to the revised anticipated arrival time of the vehicle,” Frances says.
“The Scania OnScene App is a very valuable tool for both our technicians and our customers.”
