80+ Years in Commercial Transportation
While Rand McNally has been helping travelers get to where they need to be for more than 165 years, we’ve also been delivering innovative products for the Commercial Transportation industry for more than 80 years.
From the early days of mileage guides and printed maps to today’s full line of fleet management, navigation, routing, mileage, and electronic logging solutions, Rand McNally has been a staple in cabs and trucking company offices for decades. And now, Rand McNally has defined a new category with its fleet management platform.
History highlights
The early days
In 1936, under the direction of the Household Goods Carriers' Bureau, Rand McNally began publishing The Official Transportation Mileage Guide. The guide was transformational in its day in that it established a uniform method for computing the shortest distance (in miles) between two points for motor carrier tariff purposes. In 1980, Rand McNally revolutionized the transportation technology industry with the launch of MileMaker® – an enterprise software application that calculated truck-drivable routes and mileages to assist with freight rating, dispatch, estimated travel times, back-haul movements, and fuel-tax calculations. Later on, with the launch of the IntelliRoute® suite of products, Rand McNally was the first to introduce lowest-cost routing, and address-to-address truck-specific routing, as well as incorporating road construction into routing.
The past decade
Starting in 2009, Rand McNally earned a leading position in in-cab navigation with its award-winning TND™ line of truck GPS devices. Leveraging its proprietary Rand McNally Truck Data, culled from decade upon decade of research and relationships with drivers and fleets, the truck GPS devices were developed from the ground up specifically for professional truck drivers. The devices are Trucker Tested – the result of hundreds of hours of testing and input by real long-haul drivers – and Trucker Approved – with trip-planning tools, logging, and other features designed to help drivers in each phase of their work day.
In 2010, Rand McNally entered the fleet management and telematics segment as a natural extension to its in-cab role. Rand McNally launched an in-cab, single cable/single device system that married the company’s award-winning navigation and driver-focused features with a robust telematics system that integrates with a truck's on-board computer. That system enabled fleets to better manage Hours of Service (HOS) compliance, navigation, and communication, while also facilitating document imaging, driver training and Internet access in the cab.
The pace of innovation and new product deployments for the trucking community – for both professional drivers as well as carriers, shippers, and fleets of all sizes– has ramped up significantly in the past five years. Among the highlights we launched:
- The Rand McNally fleet management platform, engineered from the ground up to provide fleets with a single platform and portal for tracking trucks and assets, recording HOS, creating specialized routing, and monitoring driver and truck performance. Expertly designed, this next generation fleet management platform delivers everything needed to connect truck, driver, fleet, and customer.
- A full line of dashboard cameras for pro drivers as well as ClearDryve™, the first 2-in-1 convertible wireless headset/headphones
- The OverDryve™ Pro line of connected in-cab devices featuring truck navigation, hands-free texting and calling, Sirius XM, and an on-board dash cam
Our approach
Rand McNally employs a large team across a wide variety of technical disciplines that include electrical, mechanical, software, and geo-spatial engineers. Members of the Rand McNally team come from distinguished backgrounds and have been critical to the launch of many world-renowned products.
The company’s agile development approach allows the team to react quickly to customer needs and drive to solutions. Rand McNally’s development method is to embed team members with customers, and to work collaboratively on solutions with the goal of producing rapid results and a strong ROI.
Looking forward
Now, more than ever, Rand McNally is committed to the Commercial Transportation industry. Rand McNally will continue to invest heavily in its portfolio of transportation solutions and in the human capital needed to match the company’s rapid rate of growth. Rand McNally’s Commercial Transportation business has been doubling annually and continues to be a major focus of the organization.
More than 80 years and we’re just getting started