Pennsylvania-based Amsted Digital, a specialist in rugged on-board GPS telematics with a focus on freight rail, has acquired Canadian railcar fleet management software company GeoMetrix Rail Logistics.

“Our vision is to create a seamless and single platform experience for our customers,” said Brad Myers, chief operations officer at Amsted Digital. “We are excited about the addition of the well-respected GeoMetrix team and the software they provide. GeoMetrix is a strong part of our vision and together we will shape the next evolution of fleet management leveraging AI technology and Amsted’s machine-learning team.”

Jason Benedict, former president of GeoMetrix, now becomes vice president for digital sales at Amsted.

“Amsted Rail, the company behind Amsted Digital, has a reputation for quality, reliability and performance, and we believe their commitment to being global leaders aligns with our commitment to our customers,” said Benedict.

Amsted has developed a proprietary IoT stack on the Microsoft Azure cloud-platform to gain scale, reliability and efficiency while delivering software applications and features to customers. This combination improves speed in the performance of the platform and, with its integrated machine-learning capability, development to deployment can take weeks not months.

“Technology changes rapidly, and those companies that create an efficient and streamlined structure to harness digital technologies will be the leaders in delivering real value quickly to their customers,” said Jim Benedict, founder of GeoMetrix and now a member of the ideation team at Amsted. “That is what we will do together.”

The GeoMetrix software includes features such as bills of lading creation, track-and-trace capability, waybill reporting, rail yard management, ERP integrations, mechanical planning and analysis tools, and lease management.

Customers can enhance their experience by leveraging Amsted’s onboard GPS technology. Out-of-the-box features include geofence alerting such as dwell in transit, arrival and departure, high impact detection, and out-of-route.

This year, Amsted plans to release a dynamic ETA capability, which leverages machine learning and has the option to be enhanced with the use of on-board GPS technology. In addition, Amsted is launching a load status feature that doesn’t require the use of a secondary sensor to determine whether a railcar is empty or loaded, lowering the total adoption cost.

Founded in 1984 in Calgary, Alberta, GeoMetrix delivers flexible and intuitive fleet management software. The software is an online rail logistics management system for anyone who relies on rail transportation for their business.

An end-to-end, IoT company, Amsted Digital provides software enhanced by on-board GPS devices to deliver supply chain visibility across a freight rail fleet.