The paper was presented at the Polish Logistics Congress Logistics 2008 – “New challenges – new solutions”, Poznań, May 7-9, 2008.
Globalization processes in the world economy are currently placing new demands on modern transport systems. The essence of economic and social expectations lies in the demand that modern transport should meet the needs for the mobility of people and goods in an economically efficient and, at the same time, maximally safe manner. At the same time, a dynamic increase in the supply of international road transport services has been observed in Poland for several years. Growing competition forces entrepreneurs to constantly search for newer and newer system solutions. In road transport, modern telematics and IT systems provide an opportunity to improve both efficiency and safety.
Databases of telematics systems, processed by IT systems, enable a relatively quick and easy assessment of the quality of transport orders in terms of their economic efficiency, and thus help in making correct decisions in enterprise management. In turn, monitoring vehicles and cargo as well as the work of drivers creates the possibility of significantly increasing safety in transport.
In the article, based on the example of an efficiency analysis of a representative sample of small and medium-sized Polish road transport enterprises carrying out intra-Community transport, the usefulness of telematics and information solutions in transport is presented.
Introduction
The intensive economic development of successive regions of the world places new demands on the international transport system. Due to the fact that currently 80% of the needs for the mobility of people and goods are met by road transport, the effective use of this branch of transport, the improvement of its forms of operation, the creation of increasingly modern transport systems, and the constant modernization of transport means and infrastructure is an inevitable process.
In Poland, international road transport, due to the relatively easy access to the profession of a carrier, has become one of the most dynamically developing branches of the economy. The proper functioning of a transport company in the international or intra-Community transport market, its financial and personnel stabilization, the financing of its operations, the dynamics of development, or finally the use of modern solutions of the 21st century, depend mainly on the degree of professionalism of the company’s management staff. Currently, the chance for a company to survive in the intra-Community market is provided by modern telematics and IT systems, which are slowly becoming a very important executive tool of modern logistics.
Telematics systems enable permanent monitoring of vehicles or transported cargo, control of vehicle and driver performance parameters, and the transmission of recorded data values, via telecommunications means, to their processing center. In turn, IT systems enable the processing of obtained data and create the possibility of using them for more effective enterprise management through more efficient management of its human and equipment resources, minimization of direct costs in transport, greater control of cargo and safer control of its flow, and minimization of the risk of loss or replacement of the transported cargo.
The continuous development of the IT industry and the rapid increase in the availability of solutions using satellite systems (mainly GPS) means that many modern systems supporting enterprise management have appeared on the modern European market. Data obtained through the use of these systems support management processes, thereby increasing the efficiency and competitiveness of the enterprise in the increasingly integrated European transport market. They allow not only for the creation and development of databases for route optimization and minimization of direct transport costs, which significantly contributes to shortening their implementation time and directly supports enterprise management, but also for increasing the safety of drivers, vehicles, and cargo, as well as more efficient fleet management.
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