TL; DR
This leading transportation company was spending money on trailers they didn’t need because they couldn’t see the ones they already had. After deploying TGI Connect, they eliminated a significant portion of their rental fleet, saved approximately $750,000 in Year 1, and grew their business at the same time. The difference wasn’t more trailers. It was better data.
About Maritime-Ontario
One of the top carriers in Canada carrying freight coast-to-coast and into the US market.
Serving customers across a broad network with a dedicated and freight division, the company has built its business on reliability, strong customer relationships, and a commitment to continuous improvement.
As the industry has evolved, so has the organization, embracing technology as a core part of how it manages assets, serves customers, and empowers its teams.
The Challenge
When Carlos Sousa stepped into his role as EVP of Operations, he encountered a familiar pattern, one that plagues operations leaders across the industry.
Dispatch was coming to management almost daily, requesting more trailers. The assumption was simple: the fleet wasn’t big enough. But the leadership team wasn’t convinced. The suspicion internally was that the real issue wasn’t a shortage of trailers. It was a lack of visibility into where those trailers actually were and whether they were being used.
“I was concerned that we weren’t utilizing the fleet to the degree that we should be,” Carlos recalled. “My predecessor felt that we had the dispatch systems in place to manage things, that we knew where all the trailers were. But they weren’t being managed.” – Carlos Sousa, EVP at Maritime-Ontario
The problem wasn’t the people. This is a company with outstanding staff. But even outstanding people are only as effective as the data and tools available to them. Without accurate, accessible information, the path of least resistance, requesting more trailers, was winning every time.
Why TGI Connect
Other trailer tracking systems had been evaluated before TGI Connect. None of them delivered the confidence or clarity needed to act on the data. When the owner introduced the leadership team to TGI, what changed was simple: visibility.
For the first time, the operations team could see exactly where their equipment was. That was enough to make the case to ownership and move forward with a full installation across their road assets.
The Turning Point: Utilization Reports
Once TGI Connect was deployed across the fleet, the team began pulling dwell and utilization reports, and the picture that emerged was starkly different from what dispatch had been reporting.
The team started asking questions. Why were certain trailers sitting where they were? For how long? The answers took time to come back, not because people were hiding anything, but because no one had been looking. When they started looking, they started finding.
Trailers were sitting idle in terminal yards. They were being held at customer facilities well beyond what was agreed. Some had ended up at other carriers’ yards. A handful had crossed the border entirely.
“When they started checking, they started finding all the underutilized equipment, sitting in yards, at customers, at other carriers’ yards. Even out of country. We found equipment that was being pulled and we recovered it.” – Carlos Sousa, EVP at Maritime-Ontario
The data wasn’t just revealing underutilization. It was giving the operations team a foundation to act, something they had never had before.
The Results
The impact came quickly, within the first year of full deployment.
A significant reduction in rental fleet size. By knowing where every trailer was and how it was being used, this leading transportation company was able to eliminate a substantial number of rental units from its fleet. Not by cutting service, but by recovering and redeploying assets that had been invisible before. Approximately 20% of the rental pool was returned in Year 1 alone.
$750,000 in savings in Year 1. Eliminating those rental units generated roughly three quarters of a million dollars in savings in the first year alone, not counting the downstream reductions in maintenance and per-kilometre charges that came with a leaner fleet.
Growth alongside a smaller fleet. Perhaps the most telling result: the business didn’t just cut costs, it grew. In the same year the trailer pool was reduced, the business expanded. Fewer trailers. More business. The data made it possible.
“Imagine the cost savings of that. And that was simply by knowing where your trailers were.” – Carlos Sousa, EVP at Maritime-Ontario
Beyond Right-Sizing: Dwell and Detention
Utilization was only the beginning. With geofencing in place across every terminal, customer yard, and facility, the team gained something equally valuable: indisputable dwell data.
Like many carriers, customers had developed a habit of using trailers as an extension of their warehouse, holding equipment well beyond contracted terms, often without notice. Before TGI Connect, disputing those situations was an exercise in “he said, she said.” The data didn’t exist to validate the claim.
With TGI Connect, it did. Date and time-stamped arrival and departure records provided the documentation needed to either negotiate fleet reductions with customers or pursue detention billing through a formal agreement process. Revenue that had previously been written off became recoverable.
Stronger Teams, Better Decisions
One of the themes that stands out from this customer’s experience with TGI Connect isn’t technology. It’s people.
“You’ve got good people and they know what they’re doing. They’re only as good as the data and the information they have and the tools that allow them to do their job to the best of their ability. Even though they’re good, without those tools, they’re limited.” – Carlos Sousa, EVP at Maritime-Ontario
The value of utilization data wasn’t just in the cost savings. It was in what it allowed the team to do. Staff who had been operating on instinct and incomplete information now had the tools to make intelligent, defensible decisions. That shift, from reactive to proactive, changed how the entire operation functioned.
A Partnership Built on Results
This organization has been a committed TGI Connect customer for over five years, and the relationship has only deepened over time.
“We couldn’t operate without them.”
For Carlos, the relationship with TGI Connect reflects something he looks for in any service partner: quality, reliability, and a genuine commitment to solving problems. When challenges come up, they get addressed. When the team has brought ideas to the table, TGI has listened and in many cases built them into the platform.
“Everybody tries to sell you something. But it’s what you deliver, and what you deliver on a consistent basis. If you can do that, you build a relationship that is hard to walk away from.” – Carlos Sousa, EVP at Maritime-Ontario
| Result | Detail |
| Rental Fleet Reduction | ~20% of rental pool eliminated in Year 1 |
| First-year cost savings | ~$750,000 |
| Business growth | Revenue increased in the same year fleet was reduced |
| Dwell management | Detention billing validated and revenue recovered |
| Maintenance compliance | PM schedules met every month without exorbitant recovery costs |
| Asset recovery | Lost and cross-border equipment located and recovered |
| Carrier validation | Outside carrier mileage and wait time disputes resolved with TGI data |
Frequently Asked Questions
How long did it take to see a return on their TGI Connect investment?
Within the first year. By eliminating a significant portion of their rental trailer fleet, this leading transportation company recovered the full cost of the system and generated approximately $750,000 in savings before the end of Year 1.
How did the team know which trailers to cut?
Utilization and dwell reports gave the operations team a clear view of which assets weren’t moving, where they were sitting, and for how long. Rather than relying on dispatch reporting or instinct, every decision was backed by date and time-stamped location data accurate to within 15 to 20 feet.
Did reducing the fleet affect their ability to handle business growth?
No, it enabled it. The business grew in the same year the rental fleet was reduced. Recovering idle and customer-held assets freed up capacity that had been invisible, meaning the fleet they already had was more than sufficient to support additional volume.
What is a dwell report and how did it help?
A dwell report tracks how long a trailer spends at any geofenced location, such as a customer site, terminal, maintenance facility, or yard. In this case, it provided indisputable evidence of how long customers were holding trailers beyond contracted terms, enabling the team to either recover the equipment or bill for detention, revenue that had previously been written off.
Can TGI Connect data be used outside of operations?
Yes. The team extended TGI Connect into payroll and administration, using it to validate mileage claims from outside carriers and resolve disputes over waiting time at customer facilities. Any department that relies on accurate location or movement data can draw from the same source.
Is this level of visibility realistic for smaller fleets?
The pattern of underutilization and hidden dwell exists at every fleet size. The same reports that uncovered a significant number of idle trailers at this scale work just as effectively for smaller operations, as the data simply scales to the size of the fleet.
About TGI Connect
Welcome to TGI Connect, the trusted leader in trailer tracking and asset management solutions for the transportation and logistics industry, in business since 1992. We specialize in trailer tracking, helping fleets maximize efficiency, visibility, and cost savings with our cutting-edge satellite tracking technology.
Our extended coverage footprint and state-of-the-art satellite connectivity ensure real-time trailer tracking, automated reporting, and seamless data integration, reducing downtime and boosting revenue opportunities. Backed by a dedicated customer service team, we provide proactive account management and a proven track record of reliability, trust, and customer satisfaction.
Partner with TGI Connect to optimize your trailer fleet operations, enhance trailer utilization, and stay ahead in today’s competitive transportation industry. For more information visit www.tgi-connect.com.
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