Trailer tracking is turning out to be a potent weapon in the war against cargo thieves.

Mobile communications provider Terion began to see the potential in December, said Kurt Kyvik, Terion's senior marketing communications manager. Terion, of Melbourne, Fla., markets the Fleet View trailer tracking system.
"We had one of our customers who was just doing the installs. I think they had gotten almost halfway through, when two trailers were stolen out of their yard. I believe it was in North Carolina," Kyvik recalled.
One of the trailers had the Fleet View unit installed, said Kyvik. Terion's service center located the trailer in Miami. It took some explaining, but Terion and its customer finally convinced Miami police to check the location.
"... and there were two guys trying to peel the labels off these two trailers. The door seals had not been broken and they recovered everything intact," said Kyvik.
"Everything" included $2.5 million in designer clothing.
"That was the first one that kind of hit us over the head," Kyvik said. "It kind of snowballed from there."
In another incident, a load of Gatorade vanished from a Sacramento, Calif., lot where it had been parked by an owner-operator. The thief took both the trailer and the driver's brand new Freightliner tractor, said Kyvik.
Terion and its customer notified the California Highway Patrol and shadowed the trailer downstate, first to Bakersfield, then to Ontario and finally to a warehouse where police rounded up another 10 stolen trailers, about $10.5 million in merchandise and an entire cargo theft ring.
"And the owner-operator got his truck back," said Kyvik.
And then there was the case of the owner-operator who was supposed to drop a load from California in Indiana then go on to New Jersey.
"He dropped the load in Indianapolis, called in and said he'd blown the engine and couldn't continue the route," said Kyvik.
But a few days later, the customer noticed the trailer that was supposed to be in Indianapolis was actually in Miami. A check of trailer-tracking records showed the trailer had been to Miami twice and New Jersey once, Kyvik said.
But before Miami police could move, the trailer did, heading back north where the owner's own security chief followed it to Brooklyn. There, he flagged down police to arrest the guy who had hauled the load from California in the first place.
"Of course he hadn't broken down," said Kyvik. "The guy admitted he was using the trailer on the side to haul cargo."
Kyvik said many of the recoveries involved rented or leased trailers from XTRA Lease, the St. Louis-based equipment leasing and rental company. Kyvik said some 17,000 XTRA Lease trailers are now equipped with Fleet View.
According to Mary Wilson, XTRA Lease spokeswoman, XTRA Lease expects to have 25,000 units equipped in the next month or so.
XTRA Lease has some 90,000 pieces of equipment, some of it specialized. For now, Fleet View is only installed on dry van trailers, said Wilson.
Dry van rental trailers are all equipped with Fleet View, she said.
"We're thrilled that customers have recovered stolen freight and equipment, but that's not really why we installed trailer tracking," she said. "We installed it so customers could better utilize their assets."
XTRA Lease has "raised the bar," said Wilson. "Trailer tracking will become a leasing industry standard."