RoadConnect – Michelin aim to ease truckers’ lives with new app

Michelin now offers truck drivers a new app that aims to “help them optimise their mobility and make their daily lives easier.” After a year of development in consultation with truck drivers, the tyre maker began providing new digital services via the Michelin RoadConnect application on 11 September. The app, says Michelin, is built around four main features.

The first of these is optimised routes. Michelin says its RoadConnect helps drivers find suitable routes and provides an estimated journey time with three options (the shortest, the fastest and the most economical), with ViaMichelin in partnership with TomTom.

Throughout the journey, drivers can view the location of car parks, restaurants and service stations to better plan a pause using the app’s break location search function. They can view all points of interest specific to road transport, thanks to data supplied by partners such as TruckFly. They can save their favourite points of interest with useful related information (such as address, telephone number, opening hours and menu prices). Their favourite loading and delivery addresses are also saved, which saves time on a daily basis.

The third key function is a godsend for Smokey and the Bandit fans, and gives drivers the ability to talk and exchange with other truck drivers. Michelin refers to the function, developed by its partner startup Spea’k, as CB 2.0. It enables users to speak to each other using a private or public channel. “This makes communication for drivers easier, more spontaneous and more user-friendly,” comments Michelin. “It can also be used by drivers to provide mutual assistance.”

The app also offers truckers the ability to locate colleagues in real time. Drivers can add their friends in the app, see their geolocation in real-time and call or message them directly via Michelin RoadConnect. “Social links are created between drivers, enabling them to share favourite addresses, meet up during breaks, or share a meal,” comments Michelin.

Michelin aims for RoadConnect to be adopted by 100,000 drivers within a short period of time, and holds the goal of building “a significant community so that drivers can find as many colleagues and friends as possible in the app.” User feedback will be considered when further developing the app, which is now available on Android / Google Play. The app will be available on iOS before the end of 2017. It is optimised for European roads and already can be set up in French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish and Dutch.