We install GPS tracking, pump (PTO) monitoring, dash cameras and backup cameras on vacuum trucks and portable toilet service vehicles across the Charleston area, at your yard, on any major telematics brand.
It proves where every truck pumped, when the pump ran, and where the load was dumped, without your drivers writing any of it down from memory.
A septic route is not a delivery route. A truck can spend twenty minutes driving and forty minutes parked with the pump running, then do it again five times before it needs to empty. The questions an owner actually asks at the end of the day are specific: did the truck reach the house on the ticket, how long did the pump run there, and did the load go to the right place. A standard tracker that only shows dots on a map answers the first question. A properly wired install answers all three.
That is the difference we focus on. We wire the tracker to the truck's pump engagement signal, set up stops so a pump-out at an address reads as a job instead of a long idle, and fit dash cameras and backup cameras where the truck actually needs eyes. The goal is a record you can hand to a customer, an inspector or an insurer.
Every major brand, including Samsara, Motive, Geotab, Verizon Connect, Lytx, Netradyne and Powerfleet. Bring the hardware you already have, or we supply it with the install.
The tracker logs location and drive time, and an auxiliary input wired to the PTO or pump switch logs every pump-out with a start time, stop time and address.
Vacuum trucks reverse all day, down long residential driveways and into tight restaurant lots. A backup camera helps avoid the mailbox, fence and parked-car strikes that come with that kind of day.
Road-facing dash cameras, with driver-facing options, for the incidents that turn into he-said, she-said claims on a heavy truck. Footage is time-stamped against the GPS track.
South Carolina requires a written record of every septage removal and disposal, kept for at least two years and available to the state on request.
The rule is South Carolina regulation R.61-56.1, run by the SC Department of Environmental Services (the agency that took over this work from DHEC). For each cleaning or transport job, the record has to show:
Look at that list next to what a wired tracker records on its own: time, place, and how long the pump ran at each stop, then the time and place of the dump. GPS does not replace the written record, and we will never tell you it does. What it does is make the record quick to fill in at the end of the day and give you a time-stamped history to fall back on if a customer or an inspector questions an entry two years later.
The same regulation only allows septage to be dumped at facilities the state has approved, at the discharge point the facility tells you to use, and each facility has to be listed on your license application. A geofence around each approved site makes every dump show up on the track automatically, and an alert can flag a long pump-on stop anywhere else. For an owner, that is peace of mind about what happens when a driver is short on time at the end of a route.
Licenses renew every year, the state can ask to inspect any vehicle used to pump or haul septage, and you have to notify them when a truck is added, replaced or taken out of service. Every pumping truck must also carry the company name and license number on its sides and rear in letters at least four inches tall. When we install, we mount hardware so it does not cover or crowd that lettering, and we keep a per-truck record of what is installed, which helps when your truck list changes.
Because it is heavy, it backs up constantly, it idles on purpose, and it works in wet, corrosive conditions, so a basic plug-in install misses most of what the owner needs to know.
Water weighs about 8.34 pounds a gallon, so every thousand gallons in the tank adds roughly four tons. A truck leaving the yard empty and a truck heading to the disposal site full handle completely differently, and harsh braking and cornering events mean much more on the full leg. Dash camera footage tied to the GPS track shows exactly which leg an event happened on.
On most telematics platforms an engine running with the truck parked reads as idling. On a septic truck, much of that is the pump doing paid work. Wiring the pump signal into the tracker separates paid pump time from true idle, so your fuel and idle reports stop punishing the drivers who are doing the most jobs. It is a short wire run, and it is the one most easily skipped on a rushed install.
Trucks around Charleston see standing water and salt air, and pumping trucks get hosed down often. We use sealed connections, route harnesses away from spray and splash zones, and pay close attention to grounding. Installs done to dry-climate habits tend to fail at the connector, not at the device.
It shows every service visit with a time stamp and keeps track of the trailers and trucks that move units between job sites and events.
Construction customers have a reason to care about service. Federal OSHA rules (29 CFR 1926.51) set a minimum number of toilets on a construction site by crew size: one for 20 workers or fewer, and one toilet seat and one urinal per 40 workers above that. A general contractor who gets a complaint wants to know when the units were last serviced. A GPS record of the service truck stopped at that site, with the pump running, answers the question in seconds.
Much of portable toilet work is recurring service: the same stops on a set schedule. Route history shows which stops are being skipped, which ones always run long, and which drivers are working the route in the order it was planned. That is the information you need to price a contract correctly instead of guessing.
When a large event or a big build needs dozens of extra units, trucks and trailers go places they do not normally go. Battery-powered asset trackers on unpowered trailers show where every trailer is sitting, so pickups after the event do not depend on someone remembering where a trailer was dropped.
We do. API Signal has been installing vehicle electronics for 35 years and installs every major telematics, dash camera and backup camera brand, at your yard, with $2M insurance.
We are not tied to one brand, so the system on your trucks is the one that fits your operation. We come to your yard, usually before the first route or after the last one, so trucks keep running their routes. A single installer typically handles 15 to 20 vehicles a day on standard installs, and most jobs are scheduled 3 to 5 days out. We are a Geotab Authorized Installer, and we install Samsara, Motive, Verizon Connect, Lytx, Netradyne, Powerfleet, CalAmp and more.
For an industrial vacuum services company, we installed GPS tracking with driver ID across its fleet at yards in Sumter, Savannah, Garden City, Augusta, Riceboro and New Bern. The work covered vacuum semis from Peterbilt, Sterling, International and Volvo, stand-alone vacuum trailers, and the pickups that support them. Some trucks were done on site at a customer's chemical plant so they never left the job, and we went back for service visits to reset and replace units as the fleet changed.
No. South Carolina regulation R.61-56.1 still requires written records of each removal and disposal, kept for at least two years. GPS and PTO data make those records faster to fill in and give you time-stamped backup if an entry is ever questioned.
Yes. Most major telematics devices accept an auxiliary input, and we wire the PTO or pump engagement signal into it, so each pump-out shows up with a start time, stop time and location.
Yes. Backup cameras are one of the most useful installs on a vacuum truck, because so much of the day is spent reversing down residential driveways and into tight commercial lots.
Yes. Unpowered trailers take battery-powered asset trackers, so you can see where every unit trailer is sitting without a wire run.
A basic GPS install runs $65 to $125 per vehicle and a dash camera install $95 to $125 per vehicle. PTO wiring, backup cameras and multi-device trucks are quoted per job. A trip fee typically applies to every job.
No. We install at your yard, usually before the first route or after the last one, so trucks do not lose service hours.
Tell us how many trucks you run and what is on them now, and we will work around your routes.
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