Vertical Markets

Car key security

by Mark Rowe

Traka Automotive, makers of an electronic key management product for car dealers, reports acceleration in demand since Traka’s parent company Assa Abloy bought eTag to create Traka Automotive late last year.

Traka Automotive brings together key management hardware from Traka with software from eTag designed to enable dealers to track and report on car key movements and locations. Traka Automotive now has 25,688 registered users and has handled 79 million individual key movements, helping to secure a total of 3.4 million UK cars.

Total key movements being tracked in dealerships is now rising at a rate of 212,000 per week across the UK with the biggest sites clocking up to 9,630 weekly. Average key movements recorded on eTag have risen from 11,500 to 12,440 per month per site over the last year as staff numbers using the system have risen close to 100pc on all sites which have deployed it.

Paul Smith, director, Traka Automotive, pictured, says: “The statistics tell a story not only of Traka Automotive rapidly increasing market share but also of near 100pc adoption of the system by dealership staff who are seeing real value from using it to keep track of keys day in day out.”

Access to keys is only given to authorised individuals using proximity access tokens or fingerprint biometric readers. When a car arrives at a dealership, details are pulled from the DMS into eTag and the keys are allocated using an intelligent fob (iFob) which identifies the car while at the business.

Vehicle movements and users are tracked when the key is taken from, or returned to, a key cabinet. This provides a full audit trail of movement and vital knowledge about processes undertaken on a vehicle. Lines of slots can be allocated to specific areas within the dealership, such as the showroom, workshop or PDI.

As well as reducing incidents of lost or misplaced keys, the eTag software avoids time wasted searching for keys and vehicles. This is helping improve staff productivity and dealer profitability to the point where return on investment is achievable in under one year, according to the company.

From next year, Traka Automotive system users will also be able to access the system via Android and Apple iPhone or iPads smart devices. This will enable staff to find out which cabinet is holding relevant keys in seconds via their mobile right there and then, rather than calling a colleague who is at their desk to raise the query – saving more time.

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