ARCOS Brings Convoy Tracking to Crew Manager, Giving Utilities Real-Time Visibility into Mutual Aid Crew Location

 ARCOS LLC, which will be in Booth #117 at the International Lineman's Expo, announced the addition of convoy tracking to Crew Manager, its product for assigning, tracking and managing crews. Convoy tracking provides utilities with detailed visibility into the location of mutual aid crews as they travel from their point of origin to staging areas to support restoration efforts.

A lack of visibility into mutual aid crews during storm response has long been a costly and frustrating challenge for utilities, according to the company. When crews are dispatched from hundreds of miles away, utilities are often forced to rely on rough travel estimates, phone calls or text messages to determine arrival times and an accurate picture of the equipment that will be traveling with each crew. The resulting uncertainty leads to extended onboarding delays, inaccurate estimated times of restoration (ETRs), wasted lodging and meal expenses, and ultimately, longer outages for customers.

“When there is a major restoration effort, every hour counts, but a lack of visibility and real-time data often complicates and slows those efforts,” said Paul Bernard, CEO of ARCOS. “With convoy tracking, we’re addressing one of the biggest blind spots in outage response by giving utilities the visibility they need to coordinate the deployment of mutual aid and native crews to restore power more quickly and efficiently, while maintaining trust with customers and visibility for regulators.”

With real-time information on where crews are and when they’ll arrive, utilities can prepare staging areas, onboard crews faster and put them to work immediately — accelerating restoration and improving customer satisfaction.

• Increase the accuracy of ETRs: Accurately calculate ETRs as a whole and on a per-location basis with live mutual aid crew arrival information, including expected headcount per hour.
• Accelerate deployment of mutual aid crews: Utility check-in representatives are notified when a convoy arrives on site.
• Improve data-driven resource decisions: Utilities can visualize convoy locations and understand how many crews are en route and when they will arrive, allowing for accurate analysis of the cost versus the benefit of requesting more workers.
• Reduce costs: With accurate lodging counts and faster crew deployment, resources are used efficiently and costs are reduced. Crews are not waiting for assignments, and lodging is only arranged for crews that have arrived.

For more information, stop by Booth #117 at the 2025 International Lineman's Expo or visit www.arcos-inc.com.