Every Lorry. Every Border. Every Litre — Accounted For.
Kendaall’s lorry and commercial fleet tracking is built around what actually makes a heavy vehicle different from a car: SAE J1939 engine diagnostics, axle load awareness, independent trailer tracking, and satellite-backed visibility that keeps working through the Northern Corridor and beyond. One dashboard, every truck, every trailer, every crossing.
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What Is Lorry Fleet Tracking, and How Is It Different From Tracking a Car?
Lorry fleet tracking is often sold in Kenya as the same product as car or motorcycle tracking with a bigger device bolted on. It isn’t, and treating it that way is where a lot of commercial fleet deployments underperform. A lorry is a different kind of entity from a car: it exposes different diagnostic data, it is regulated by different weight rules, it frequently detaches from and reattaches to different trailers, and a meaningful share of Kenya’s lorry fleet crosses at least one international border in the course of normal operation. A tracking platform built around those specific attributes looks and behaves differently from one built for a passenger vehicle and adapted upward.
The clearest technical difference sits at the diagnostic port. Passenger cars and most light commercial vehicles expose a standardised 16-pin OBD-II connector, and a large share of the GPS trackers sold in Kenya are built around reading it. Heavy-duty trucks, trailers, and buses typically run a different protocol entirely — SAE J1939 over a Controller Area Network, accessed through a 9-pin Deutsch connector. A device built only for OBD-II either can’t read a J1939 truck’s engine data at all, or reads it through an adapter that loses fidelity. Fault codes, RPM, fuel rail pressure, and coolant temperature on a heavy truck are only as accurate as the diagnostic protocol the tracker was actually designed to speak.
Weight regulation is the second major divergence. A car has no meaningful axle load rule to comply with; a lorry does. Kenya enforces gross vehicle weight and per-axle load limits under the Traffic Act (Cap. 403) and the Kenya Roads (KeNHA) Regulations, checked at weighbridge stations along national highways and at border posts. A truck can be fined for an overloaded axle even while its total weight sits within the legal gross limit, because the rule exists to protect road infrastructure from concentrated point loads, not just to cap overall tonnage. A tracking platform that has never had to think about this typically has no answer for a fleet manager asking whether a specific load is safely distributed before the next weighbridge.
A third divergence is structural: a lorry is frequently two separate assets travelling as one. An articulated tractor unit and its trailer are physically and electrically independent, and a fleet that swaps trailers between tractors at a depot — loading one while another is en route — needs to track both halves, not just the powered unit with the engine and the convenient power supply. Passenger vehicle tracking has no equivalent problem to solve.
The fourth is geographic. A significant share of Kenya’s lorry fleet operates cross-border, moving cargo along the Northern Corridor into Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, and beyond, or along routes into Tanzania. Those routes cross stretches with inconsistent 4G coverage, pass through multiple national regulatory regimes, and — for transit and excisable cargo — sit inside a parallel government cargo-monitoring system operated by the Kenya Revenue Authority. A fleet platform that assumes continuous urban network coverage and a single national jurisdiction simply wasn’t built with this segment in mind.
J1939 Engine Diagnostics
Fault codes, RPM, and fuel rail data read natively from the heavy-duty CAN-bus, not estimated from GPS speed.
Axle Load Awareness
Early-warning axle load estimates on compatible vehicles, ahead of the next weighbridge.
Cross-Border Visibility
Satellite-backed coverage that keeps reporting through Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and beyond.
Cargo Condition Monitoring
Temperature and humidity sensing for perishable, pharmaceutical, and other sensitive loads.
The Current Kendaall Hardware Lineup for Lorries and Trailers
A single lorry configuration doesn’t exist — a rigid delivery truck, an articulated tractor-trailer, and a fuel tanker each have different diagnostic ports, different power arrangements, and different cargo risks. The lineup below reflects that: each device is built for a specific job on a specific part of a heavy vehicle, rather than one generic box expected to suit all of them.
J1939 / OBD-II Diagnostic Tracker
Plugs into the vehicle’s diagnostic port — a 9-pin Deutsch connector on most heavy trucks running SAE J1939, or a 16-pin OBD-II port on lighter commercial vehicles — and reads engine RPM, coolant temperature, fault codes, fuel rail data, and odometer directly from the vehicle’s own electronic control unit.
- Reads SAE J1939 (heavy trucks) and OBD-II (light commercial)
- Live fault code and RPM streaming
- Matches the vehicle’s own odometer reading
- Installs without cutting into vehicle wiring
Hardwired Tamper-Resistant Tracker
For tankers, rigid trucks, and high-value cargo lorries where a plug-in device is too easy to remove, this tracker connects directly to the vehicle’s power system and is fitted in a concealed location by a certified installer, with an internal backup cell for reporting through a power loss.
- Concealed, permanent installation
- Internal backup battery for power-loss reporting
- Tamper and disconnect alerts
- Recommended for tankers and high-value cargo
Solar-Powered Trailer Tracker
A tractor unit and its trailer are two separate assets that don’t always travel together. This tracker mounts to the trailer chassis itself, drawing power from a small solar panel and internal battery, so it keeps reporting position independently of whichever tractor unit is — or isn’t — attached to it.
- Independent of tractor unit power
- Solar-assisted battery, multi-week standby
- Reports which tractor is coupled to which trailer
- Suited to flatbeds, tankers, container chassis
BLE Diesel Tank Sensor
Installed inside the lorry’s diesel tank, this sensor reports fuel level every 30 seconds over Bluetooth Low Energy. On long-haul routes where a single tank can hold hundreds of litres, a sudden unexplained drop is the clearest signal of a siphoning event, whether the truck is parked overnight or stopped roadside.
- 30-second fuel level reporting
- Siphon and drainage alerts
- Litres-per-100km reporting by route and driver
- Compatible with single and dual diesel tanks
Cargo Temperature & Humidity Sensor
For lorries carrying perishable goods, pharmaceuticals, or other temperature-sensitive cargo, this in-trailer sensor logs temperature and humidity continuously and raises an alert the moment a reading drifts outside a configured safe range, leaving a time-stamped record for the receiving party.
- Continuous in-transit temperature and humidity logging
- Configurable safe-range alerts
- Time-stamped record for delivery verification
- Suited to reefer trailers and insulated vans
AI Dash Camera
A forward and driver-facing camera add-on that records continuously, flags harsh braking, lane drift, and fatigue indicators in real time, and automatically preserves footage around any hard-braking or collision event — supporting insurance claims and dispute resolution afterward.
- Forward and driver-facing recording
- Automatic incident-triggered footage retention
- Fatigue and distraction indicators
- Supports insurance and incident claims
Every device above ships as part of the Kendaall platform and is paired with your dashboard at installation — none require a separate app or a separate subscription.
What a Lorry Fleet Actually Needs From a Tracking Provider
A generic GPS tracker will still put a dot on a map for a 30-tonne lorry. Whether that’s useful to a transport company depends entirely on everything the dot doesn’t show.
Built for J1939, Not Retrofitted From a Car Tracker
Many GPS trackers sold in Kenya are designed first for passenger cars and adapted afterward for trucks. Kendaall’s lorry hardware is built around the SAE J1939 protocol from the start, so engine fault codes, RPM, and fuel rail data are read natively rather than estimated from GPS speed.
Visibility That Doesn’t End at the Customs Gate
KRA’s RECTS seal gives customs a view of your cargo in transit. Kendaall gives your own dispatch team a live, continuously updated view of the whole fleet — at the depot, on the highway, and across the border — without waiting on a government monitoring centre to share what it sees.
No Dead Zones on the Corridor
The Kendaall device carries 4G LTE, satellite, and LoRaWAN radios simultaneously. When 4G drops on a remote stretch, satellite takes over in under 200ms, and with no network at all the device keeps recording locally.
Cargo-Aware, Not Just Location-Aware
Temperature, humidity, and axle-load add-ons mean the platform understands what’s happening inside the trailer, not only where the tractor unit is — critical for perishable, pharmaceutical, or overweight-sensitive loads.
Reporting That Speaks the Language of Compliance
Exportable trip logs, fuel audits, and maintenance records are built to hand to a finance team, an insurer, or an inspector without reformatting, because a lorry fleet answers to more scrutiny than a single company car.
Dedicated Logistics Support in Kenya
Our team is based in Nairobi and understands what a stalled truck on the Mombasa Road costs per hour. Enterprise fleet clients get a named account manager and priority response on urgent alerts.
From Engine Signal to Dispatch Alert, Wherever the Truck Is
The Kendaall platform processes telemetry from the tractor unit, the trailer, and any cargo sensors fitted, running it through the same four-stage pipeline used across our fleet — tuned for the realities of long-haul and cross-border operation.
Capture
GPS position, J1939/CAN-bus engine data, fuel level, axle load and cargo temperature where fitted, collected continuously from tractor and trailer.
Transmit
The radio module picks the optimal path in real time, switching to satellite on corridor sections with no 4G; edge compression cuts bandwidth.
Analyse
Route compliance, fuel theft pattern matching, driver scoring, cargo thresholds, and predictive maintenance algorithms run simultaneously.
Alert & Act
Findings reach dispatch via dashboard, SMS, and automated feeds — exception reports and work orders trigger on your business rules.
No Dead Zone From the Port to the Border
Kenya’s road network crosses highland forest, Rift Valley escarpments, remote northern corridors, and cross-border routes where no single network operator provides consistent 4G coverage — and a lorry, unlike a delivery van, is built to spend its working life on exactly those stretches. Kendaall’s connectivity architecture is designed around that reality: a centralised connectivity chip monitors signal quality continuously and executes automatic failover in under 200 milliseconds when a primary path degrades.
- Sub-200ms automatic network failover with zero data loss
- 30-day local telemetry buffer on encrypted industrial flash storage
- AES-256 encryption on all data transmission paths
- Satellite backup covering routes into Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda
- 5G-ready hardware module for future network upgrade compatibility
Where Lorry Tracking Meets Kenyan and Regional Compliance
Tracking a lorry sits inside an active regulatory environment in a way that tracking a private car generally doesn’t. NTSA’s vehicle and telematics rules, KeNHA’s axle load enforcement, and KRA’s cross-border cargo monitoring all touch the same truck a fleet tracking platform is watching — sometimes overlapping with what a platform like Kendaall provides, sometimes running entirely separately from it. Understanding which is which matters before a business signs a contract with any tracking provider, not only Kendaall.
NTSA’s Telematics and Speed Governor Requirements
Kenya’s National Transport and Safety Authority has, in recent regulations governing the operation of commercial service vehicles, set out requirements that include a vehicular telematics system conforming to the applicable Kenya Bureau of Standards specification, alongside a speed limiter, retro-reflective contour markings, and other safety equipment — making telematics one of the more significant technology-related obligations to appear in Kenyan commercial vehicle regulation in recent years. Separately, and for longer, commercial vehicles and PSVs above roughly 3,048kg tare weight have been required to run a speed governor, typically capped at 80km/h, fitted and calibrated by an NTSA-approved provider under Kenya Standard KS 2295:2018. Kendaall’s fleet telematics platform is built to complement these obligations rather than substitute for them: a speed governor still needs to be sourced from an NTSA-approved installer, and because regulations of this kind are periodically revised, fleet operators should confirm the current gazetted requirements directly with NTSA before scheduling an installation.
Axle Load and Weighbridge Enforcement
Axle load and gross vehicle weight limits are enforced under the Traffic Act (Cap. 403) and the Kenya National Highways Authority Regulations, checked at weighbridge stations that KeNHA operates along national highways and at border crossings. A vehicle can be fined for a single overloaded axle even when its total weight is within the legal gross limit, because the rule protects road infrastructure from concentrated point loads rather than only capping overall tonnage. On vehicles fitted with compatible air-suspension load sensors, Kendaall can surface an estimated axle load reading on the dashboard well before the next weighbridge — an operational early-warning signal that lets a dispatcher rebalance cargo ahead of time, not a certified legal-for-trade measurement in its own right; the weighbridge’s own authorised scale remains the official reading for compliance purposes.
RECTS and Cross-Border Cargo Monitoring
Transit cargo, Single Customs Territory goods, and — since 2020 — petroleum and ethanol tankers moving through Kenya under customs control are separately monitored through the Kenya Revenue Authority’s Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking System (RECTS), run jointly with the revenue authorities of Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo along the Northern Corridor. RECTS fits an electronic seal to the truck or container, reports its position to KRA’s monitoring centres, and exists to protect customs revenue and deter cargo diversion — it is a government compliance system, not a fleet management tool, and it does not give a transporter’s own dispatch team the engine, fuel, or driver behaviour data that a commercial telematics platform provides. Kendaall’s tracking runs independently of RECTS, giving a transporter continuous, self-owned visibility of the entire fleet, including trucks, legs of a journey, and data points that sit outside RECTS’s transit-cargo scope entirely.
What This Means for a Fleet Operator
None of this is a single system a transporter can buy once and consider solved. A compliant, well-run lorry fleet in Kenya is typically running an NTSA-approved speed governor, is prepared to meet the telematics standard NTSA’s regulations describe, has its axle loads managed against KeNHA’s weighbridge network, and — where it carries transit or excisable cargo — has RECTS seals fitted by KRA on top of all of it. Kendaall’s role is the operational layer that ties a fleet’s own view of all of this together: one dashboard a transporter owns and controls, rather than four separate systems a fleet manager has to check individually.
The Real Cost of an Idle Lorry, a Held Load, or an Overloaded Axle
Every cost category that affects a general vehicle fleet affects a lorry fleet too, at a larger scale and with fewer places to hide. A lorry’s diesel tank holds hundreds of litres rather than tens, which means a siphoning event or a pattern of inefficient driving translates into a proportionally larger loss per incident. Because pump prices in Kenya are set through the monthly formula published by the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority, a transporter cannot negotiate the price of diesel — the only variable within their control is how much of every tankful actually reaches productive kilometres versus how much disappears at a depot, a roadside stop, or a driver handover.
Unplanned downtime compounds the problem rather than sitting apart from it. A lorry that breaks down on a remote stretch of the Northern Corridor doesn’t just stop earning — it triggers a recovery operation that can take a full day to reach a location far from the nearest workshop, exposes the cargo to spoilage or security risk while the truck sits, and very often produces demurrage charges if the delay pushes the load past an agreed free time at a port, border, or client depot. Predictive maintenance exists to convert that unplanned roadside failure into a scheduled workshop visit, and Kendaall’s models typically provide 72 to 120 hours of lead time — enough for most fleet managers to route a truck in before it fails on the road.
Overload fines add a third leak that is specific to lorries. A truck stopped at a weighbridge for an overloaded axle doesn’t just pay the fine — Kenyan regulations generally allow cargo to be redistributed and reweighed rather than offloaded outright, but that redistribution takes time, and a delayed truck can miss the delivery window it was scheduled against. A fleet that only discovers an axle imbalance at the weighbridge is discovering it too late to do anything but pay and wait.
None of these three cost categories shows up as a single identifiable line item on a balance sheet. They’re distributed across fuel budgets, maintenance budgets, insurance premiums, and client penalty clauses — which is exactly why they persist unaddressed in fleets that rely on driver self-reporting and periodic manual checks instead of continuous sensor data from every truck, every trailer, and every border crossing.
Lorry Tracking Tuned to What’s Actually on the Truck
A tanker, a reefer trailer, and a quarry tipper are all “lorries,” but they fail differently, they’re regulated differently, and they lose money in different ways. Kendaall’s configuration adapts to the cargo, not just the chassis.
General Freight, FMCG & Retail Distribution
Distribution fleets running fast-moving consumer goods between Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, and regional depots live and die by delivery windows and route discipline. Driver behaviour scoring flags the harsh braking and speeding that damage cargo and inflate insurance premiums; route compliance confirms a truck actually followed its assigned delivery run; and J1939 diagnostics catch early signs of engine wear before a truck misses a delivery window entirely.
21%
Average fuel savings for freight clients in Year 1
33%
Fewer missed delivery windows
94hr
Typical predictive maintenance lead time
2hr
Maximum installation time per lorry
Fuel & Gas Tanker Fleets
Fuel and LPG transporters carry the single most theft-prone cargo on Kenyan roads, and a tanker’s own diesel tank is a second target alongside the load itself. Kendaall’s BLE sensors monitor both the vehicle’s own fuel tank and, where fitted, cargo-side level sensors, distinguishing normal delivery offloading from unauthorised siphoning, while geofencing confirms a tanker actually reached its licensed delivery point rather than diverting en route.
90sec
Typical siphon alert response time
100%
Delivery-point geofence verification
0
Undetected drainage events reported by clients
3wk
Typical payback period on rollout
Agricultural & Perishable Transport
Horticultural exporters and perishable-goods distributors lose money the moment a cold chain breaks, often before a delivery even arrives to reveal the damage. Cargo temperature and humidity sensors log conditions throughout the journey and alert a dispatcher the moment a reading drifts out of range, turning a silent spoilage event into an actionable mid-route decision.
24/7
Continuous cold-chain visibility
19%
Reported reduction in spoilage claims
45min
Temperature sensor install time
Live
In-transit alerting to dispatch
Mining, Quarry & Aggregate Haulage
Quarry and mining haulage trucks run heavy, repetitive routes where a single overloaded axle can mean a weighbridge fine, and unplanned downtime on an off-road haul route is expensive to recover from. Axle load estimation on compatible vehicles gives a dispatcher an early warning before the truck reaches the scale, while predictive maintenance targets the vibration and thermal signatures specific to constant heavy-load operation.
27%
Reduction in axle-overload fines reported by clients
24%
Idle time reduction
8mo
Average ROI payback period
72–120hr
Predictive maintenance lead time
Cross-Border & Transit Logistics
Transporters running the Northern Corridor into Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, or beyond operate under the most complex compliance and connectivity conditions of any fleet segment — patchy network coverage, multiple customs regimes, and, for transit cargo, a parallel RECTS seal fitted by KRA. Kendaall’s satellite-backed tracking keeps a transporter’s own dispatch team visible to the fleet the entire way, independent of any single country’s network or customs monitoring centre.
4
Countries covered by satellite backup
30-day
Offline data buffer
Sat
Satellite failover in under 200ms
24hr
Border-delay alerting to dispatch
Key Terms in Lorry and Heavy Commercial Vehicle Tracking
Lorry tracking pulls in vocabulary from road transport law and customs administration as well as GPS hardware. Here is what the terms used throughout this page actually mean.
- Axle Load
- The weight transmitted to the road surface through a single axle or axle group. Kenyan law regulates axle load separately from a vehicle’s total gross weight, because concentrated weight on too few axles causes disproportionate road damage — which is why a truck can be over its axle limit even while under its overall weight limit.
- Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW)
- The maximum total weight a vehicle is legally permitted to operate at, including its own chassis and body, fuel, driver, and everything it’s carrying. For an articulated truck, the combined figure across tractor and trailer is sometimes called Gross Combination Weight (GCW).
- SAE J1939 (CAN-bus)
- The vehicle communication protocol used by most heavy-duty trucks, trailers, and buses to share engine, transmission, and brake data over a Controller Area Network, accessed through a 9-pin Deutsch connector rather than the 16-pin OBD-II port used in passenger cars.
- RECTS
- The Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking System, operated by the Kenya Revenue Authority together with Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo’s revenue authorities, which fits electronic seals to transit and excisable cargo moving along the Northern Corridor to protect customs revenue and deter cargo diversion.
- Weighbridge
- A fixed or portable scale, installed along a highway or at a border post and operated under Weights and Measures Bureau authorisation, used to weigh a vehicle’s axles and total gross weight to confirm compliance with Kenya’s legal load limits.
- Geofence
- A virtual boundary drawn around a real-world area — a depot, a delivery zone, a border crossing — that automatically triggers an alert when a tracked vehicle or trailer crosses it.
- Predictive Maintenance
- A maintenance strategy that uses sensor data — vibration, temperature, engine fault codes — to forecast a likely component failure before it happens, rather than servicing strictly on a fixed calendar schedule.
- Demurrage
- A charge levied against a transporter or shipper when cargo, a container, or a vehicle is held beyond an agreed free time at a port, border, or depot — one of the least visible but most persistent costs of an unplanned delay.
Basic Lorry Tracker vs. Kendaall Lorry Fleet Telematics
Because many devices marketed as “truck trackers” in Kenya are car trackers in a bigger case, it helps to compare capability directly rather than take a provider’s word for which one they’re selling.
| Capability | Basic Lorry Tracker | Kendaall Lorry Fleet Telematics |
|---|---|---|
| Live location on a map | Yes | Yes |
| Reads SAE J1939 heavy-duty engine data | No | Yes |
| Fuel level monitoring & theft alerts | No | Yes |
| Independent trailer tracking | No | Yes |
| Axle load estimation (compatible vehicles) | No | Yes |
| Cross-border satellite failover | Rarely | Yes |
| Cargo temperature & humidity monitoring | No | Available add-on |
| Driver behaviour scoring | No | Yes |
| Offline data buffering | Limited or none | Up to 30 days |
| Compliance-ready exportable reporting | No | Yes |
A basic tracker is not automatically the wrong choice — a short-haul operator with no cross-border routes and no sensitive cargo may not need every layer above. But for any fleet carrying fuel, perishables, or overweight-sensitive loads, or crossing a border on a regular schedule, the location-only product leaves most of the available return on investment on the table.
A Buyer’s Checklist for Choosing a Lorry Tracking Provider in Kenya
Whichever provider a transport business chooses, these are the questions worth asking before signing — because the answers determine whether the deployment actually holds up on a real route.
- Does the device read SAE J1939 data, or only OBD-II? A device built for cars may miscount mileage or miss fault codes entirely on a heavy truck that doesn’t expose a standard OBD-II port.
- Can trailers be tracked independently of the tractor unit? If your fleet swaps trailers between trucks, tracking only the powered unit leaves half the asset invisible.
- What cross-border network and satellite coverage does the provider actually have on your corridor? Coverage claims are easy to make and hard to verify until a truck is genuinely out of 4G range.
- Is fuel monitoring built for diesel tank volumes and long-haul consumption, or a generic add-on? A sensor calibrated for a car’s fuel tank behaves differently in a 200-litre-plus diesel tank.
- Does the provider support cargo-specific sensors if you carry perishables or sensitive freight? Confirm temperature and humidity monitoring is available before you need it, not after a spoiled load.
- How does the provider’s telematics relate to NTSA’s speed governor and telematics requirements? A credible provider will explain clearly what it complements rather than blur the line with what’s separately mandated.
- Is local support based in Kenya, with response times realistic for a moving cross-border asset? A truck stuck at a border at 11pm needs a different response time than a parked car.
What Kenya’s Transport & Logistics Operators Say About Kendaall
“Our trucks run Malaba to Kigali every week. Before Kendaall we only knew where a truck was when the driver called in. Now dispatch sees the whole fleet live, and we caught a diesel theft on the Eldoret stretch in the first month that would have gone unnoticed for a full quarter.”
Peter K.
Transport Director, Cross-Border Logistics Firm
“Tanker fuel theft was our biggest unexplained cost. The BLE sensors flagged a siphoning pattern at one of our own depots within the first two weeks — not even on the road. That alone paid for the whole rollout.”
Grace N.
Fleet Manager, Fuel & Gas Distribution Company
“We were getting hit with overload fines almost weekly on the same two routes. The axle load estimate gives our dispatchers a heads-up before the weighbridge now, and the fines have dropped off almost completely.”
Daniel M.
Operations Manager, Quarry & Aggregate Haulage
From Enquiry to Live Dashboard: Onboarding a Lorry Fleet
Fleet managers evaluating a new provider often want to know what the first few weeks actually look like. Here is the sequence Kendaall follows for a typical lorry fleet deployment.
Route & Fleet Assessment
A solutions specialist reviews your fleet mix, cargo types, and the corridors or weighbridges your trucks cross regularly, then proposes a device and sensor configuration with a firm quote.
Installation Scheduling
Certified installers are scheduled at your depot or ours. Fleets of five or more vehicles qualify for mobile on-site installation, minimising time off-route.
Fitting, Pairing & Testing
Non-destructive installation, live J1939/OBD-II signal verification, trailer-to-tractor pairing where applicable, and sensor calibration, in under two hours per vehicle.
Dashboard & Compliance Training
Fleet managers and dispatchers get hands-on dashboard training, alert configuration, and a walkthrough of exportable reports for fuel audits and compliance records.
Answers to What Lorry Fleet Buyers Ask First
These are the questions Kenya’s transport directors, logistics managers, and fleet owners ask most before deploying Kendaall on a lorry fleet — answered directly, without sales language.
What makes lorry and heavy commercial vehicle tracking different from tracking a car or motorcycle?
A lorry or heavy commercial vehicle exposes engine data through the SAE J1939 protocol rather than the OBD-II port used in cars, is subject to axle load and gross vehicle weight limits that don’t apply to lighter vehicles, often pulls a trailer that needs its own independent tracking, and regularly crosses borders where network coverage and customs rules change. Lorry fleet tracking is built around those specific attributes rather than adapting a car-tracking device to a bigger vehicle.
Does Kendaall’s tracker read data from heavy trucks that use SAE J1939 instead of OBD-II?
Yes. Kendaall’s diagnostic tracker connects to the 9-pin Deutsch connector used by most heavy-duty trucks running SAE J1939 over CAN-bus, reading engine RPM, fault codes, coolant temperature, and fuel rail data directly from the vehicle’s own electronic control unit. Lighter commercial vehicles that expose a standard 16-pin OBD-II port are supported through the same diagnostic tracker family.
How much does GPS tracking for a lorry fleet cost in Kenya?
Kendaall’s lorry tracking packages start from KSh 3,500 per vehicle for installation, with monthly subscription plans covering live tracking, alerts, and dashboard access. Pricing scales with the number of vehicles, whether trailers are tracked independently, and which add-on sensors — fuel, cargo temperature, axle load — are included. Fleets of five vehicles or more qualify for volume pricing; contact our team for a quote matched to your route and cargo type.
Can Kendaall track a trailer separately from the tractor unit that’s pulling it?
Yes. Kendaall’s solar-powered trailer tracker mounts directly to the trailer chassis and draws its own power, so it keeps reporting position whether or not a tractor unit is currently attached. The dashboard shows which tractor is coupled to which trailer at any given time, which matters for fleets that swap trailers between trucks at a depot rather than running fixed tractor-trailer pairs.
Does Kendaall’s platform help fleets meet NTSA’s telematics and speed governor requirements?
Kendaall’s fleet telematics platform is designed to complement, not replace, NTSA’s regulatory requirements. Commercial vehicles above roughly 3,048kg must run a speed governor fitted and calibrated by an NTSA-approved provider under Kenya Standard KS 2295:2018, and NTSA’s regulations for commercial service vehicles separately call for a vehicular telematics system meeting the applicable Kenya Bureau of Standards specification. Because requirements of this kind are periodically updated, fleet operators should confirm the current gazetted position directly with NTSA before installation.
How does lorry tracking work on cross-border routes into Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda or beyond?
Kendaall’s tracking hardware carries 4G LTE as its primary connection with satellite backup for stretches of the Northern Corridor and other cross-border routes where mobile network coverage is inconsistent. The device switches to satellite automatically in under 200 milliseconds when the primary network degrades, and stores up to 30 days of data locally if there is no connectivity at all, synchronising fully once a signal returns.
Is Kendaall’s tracking the same as the RECTS seal that KRA fits to my truck?
No. RECTS — the Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking System — is a government-run programme operated by the Kenya Revenue Authority to monitor transit and excisable cargo for customs purposes, fitted and managed by KRA or its approved vendors, generally at no cost to the transporter. Kendaall’s tracking is a separate, privately owned fleet platform that gives your own dispatch team continuous visibility of the whole fleet, including legs of a journey, vehicles, and data points that fall outside RECTS’s transit-cargo scope.
Can the system flag an overloaded axle before a truck reaches a weighbridge?
On vehicles fitted with compatible air-suspension load sensors, Kendaall can surface an estimated axle load reading on the dashboard so a dispatcher can rebalance cargo or adjust a route before the truck reaches the next KeNHA weighbridge. This is an operational early-warning indicator, not a certified legal-for-trade measurement — the weighbridge’s own authorised scale remains the official reading for compliance purposes.
Does Kendaall support temperature monitoring for refrigerated or perishable cargo?
Yes. An in-trailer temperature and humidity sensor logs conditions continuously throughout a journey and alerts a dispatcher the moment a reading moves outside a configured safe range, before a load is compromised. The full temperature history is time-stamped and exportable, giving both the transporter and the receiving party a verifiable record of cold-chain conditions for the entire trip.
What happens if a lorry, trailer, or its cargo is stolen or hijacked?
If a tracked lorry or trailer moves outside its assigned geofence or its ignition is triggered outside authorised hours, Kendaall sends an immediate alert to the fleet manager. Devices with immobilisation capability allow an authorised user to disable the ignition once the vehicle has come to a stop, avoiding the road hazard of cutting power to a moving heavy vehicle, and the live map view supports coordination with recovery teams and law enforcement.
Your Trucks Cross Borders. Your Visibility Shouldn’t Stop at One.
Schedule a 30-minute platform demonstration with a Kendaall solutions specialist. We’ll walk through a live tracking, fuel monitoring, and axle load scenario matched to your route and cargo type, and build a preliminary cost-saving estimate based on your current fleet and corridor profile. No obligation, no sales pressure — just clarity on what Kendaall can do for your specific operation.
Book a Fleet Assessment Platform Overview
+254 105 152 896 · sales@kendaalltracking.co.ke · 35644 Kasarani Mwiki Road, Nairobi 00100