Remote engine blocking for leased trucks
How a Ghanaian trading and leasing company gained leverage against unpaid leases: GPS tracking plus remote, safety-interlocked engine immobilisation.
A retailer that also leases trucks
A trading company operating since 2011, with several dozen stores across Ghana. Its second business is selling trucks on lease — Dongfeng Chenglong H7 6×4 tractor units with a 10.3 L, 400/420 hp diesel and a 600-litre tank. The company already used a fuel monitoring system on its own trucks.
Lessees who stop paying but keep driving
Leased trucks work all over Ghana, often in sparsely populated savannah and forest. Some lessees stop paying but keep using the truck. Recovering it means travelling to a remote area, finding the vehicle, negotiating on site and sometimes involving the police — work that would need a costly collections department.
The idea: make the asset unusable until the lease is honoured. That also protects against truck theft and trucks being moved across the border.
Immobilisation with a safety interlock
A CANUp telematics gateway connected to an online telematics service, plus a MasterCAN DAC15 digital-to-analogue converter wired to electromagnetic relays. The dispatcher sends an immobilisation command through the online service — or simply by SMS.
Before acting, the gateway checks speed and location: it executes the command only when the truck has been stationary for at least five minutes. It then signals the DAC15, which drives the relay coil; the relay cuts the fuel supply, and the engine stops and stays blocked until the dispatcher sends an unblock command.
The system was developed in 2021, and 60 equipment sets have been delivered so far. Test installations confirmed reliable, safe immobilisation, with SMS the most convenient channel — the operator can send it at any time without logging into the service. Because the engine is blocked only after five minutes of standstill, a forced stop on the move is ruled out. The company plans to roll the system out to leased trucks and passenger cars.
Task → Solution → Result
Unpaid leases in remote areas
Recovering trucks from non-paying lessees was slow, costly and sometimes impossible.
CANUp + MasterCAN DAC15
Remote immobilisation by service or SMS, executed only after 5 minutes at standstill.
60 sets in service
Lease terms enforceable remotely; theft and cross-border moves blocked.
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