VR start heaters remotely

Triona and the transport operator VR have together developed a solution to remotely start heaters on some of their buses. The heaters can now start on demand and before the bus needs to be in traffic. This reduces the environmental impact and ensures a comfortable working environment for the driver. 

VR deployed Triona’s IoT platform FleetControl in 2021. This includes a vehicle computer in addition to a driver display. The vehicle computer communicates with a number of different data sources and sensors on the bus, but also with other onboard systems and VR’s own external systems. VR asked Triona if they could deliver a solution where FleetControl is used to manage the heaters on the bus in a simple and efficient way, which they were able to! 

As FleetControl continuously reads the temperature around the driver’s working environment and via a simple integration is updated with the buses’ start of service times. Heaters can now be started if the temperature is too low. 

Furthermore, the outside temperature is also taken into account so the heaters do not start earlier than needed. In this way VR can minimize energy consumption. In addition, VR can monitor the remote start of the heaters via FleetControl’s desktop client FleetAnalyzer and manually start/stop the heaters if needed and thus avoiding on-site intervention. 

“By using FleetControl to remotely start the heaters we have been able to phase out our legacy system which meant extra hardware and user interface. With the new solution we not only get cost and maintenance benefits but also administrative advantages.”, said Marcus Dahl, delivery manager for automotive technology at VR.