Abrams Towing Services

Abrams Services — “Not Like All the Other Guys”

Since Joey Gagne founded Abrams Towing Services Ltd. (Abrams Services) in 1984, it has grown to become Canada’s largest towing and recovery company and provider of motorist roadside services. The company’s principal coverage region is the Greater Toronto Area. but Abrams has an additional location in Windsor, across the river from Detroit, servicing all of Southwestern Ontario.

The company’s fleet comprises more than 100 modern towing and recovery vehicles, including light-duty tow trucks and flat beds, plus tri-axle, 40-ton heavy truck wreckers and hydraulic float trailers. Average response times are less than 15 minutes for the light-duty trucks and roughly 30 minutes for the big boys.

Innovation Works
Mr. Gagne has built the business by adopting innovative equipment and methods and by stressing customer service. He is continuously looking for new tools to help improve his fleet’s effectiveness and profitability.
When he learned about Trimble’s TrimWeb® Fleet Management System from Elm Technologies Ltd of Mississauga, and how it provides automatic, accurate and continuous information on each truck’s location and status, Mr. Gagne quickly decided the system would provide a good way to help lower response times and improve productivity of the overall fleet. He placed an initial order to equip his fleet of heavy-duty trucks to verify the system’s capability in every-day use at Abrams.

Location and Communication are Key
The TrimWeb system achieves Mr. Gagne’s goals by enabling the dispatcher to instantly see the location of each truck and determine which truck can respond most quickly to a new call.

The system also enables the dispatcher to send written instructions to a cab-mounted terminal. The driver can select the appropriate response on a menu and send it with one button-press.

Detailed reports of the daily activities of each truck help Abrams managers assess the performance of each truck, determine whether sub-par performance is a truck issue or an employee issue, and improve the overall productivity of the fleet.

It’s All About the Bottom Line
According to Mr. Gagne, “It’s all about the bottom line. The TrimWeb system is proving to be an effective management tool that makes our dispatch operations more effective and less hectic. It gives our managers all the information they need to evaluate the performance of each truck and the entire fleet. We can manage the fleet better and improve the quality of service to our customers.”

Following the success of the initial trial with the heavy-duty fleet, Abrams is installing additional TrimWeb units on the light-duty trucks operated out of their Windsor, Ontario center. The goal is to be able to do off-hours dispatch (evenings, weekends, holidays) of the Windsor fleet from the main dispatch center in Toronto. The TrimWeb system will be a significant factor in achieving both that goal and the longer-term goal of boosting the productivity of the entire Abrams fleet.

And that will help Abrams live up to its motto: “not like all the other guys.”

INNOVATION WORKS
Abrams Improves Service
With
Trimble’s TrimWeb™
Fleet Management System

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