Heavy Transport Intelligence — The Weekly
Issue Nº 03 — August 14, 2026
This Week's Lead
RTK that connects, reports you can verify, and a new face on the team.
It's been longer than a week since Issue #02 — fair to call that out. Equipment sales have been strong, and every new kit out the door means real training time with the crew running it. On top of that, we're deep in prep for Breakbulk Americas (Sept 22–23, Houston, Booth M01) — including a new Convoy Guardian we want to unveil there, and a shot at bringing a working prototype of a new 360° LiDAR clearance scanner (more on that below, in On the Bench). All of it worth the wait. Here's what shipped: ProfilingPRO gets RTK, auto-discovery, and bathymetry. MeasurePRO auto-connects. RoadScope ships signed, verifiable reports. Plus the SolTecONE beta, SweptPRO's drone module, and a new face on the team.
In this issue
- 01Welcome to the team: Tristan joins SolTec Innovation
- 02The Question We're Asking: who runs dispatch on AI first?
- 03ProfilingPRO 4.16.1 — RTK, auto-discovery, bathymetry
- 04From the Field: 255 km, tens of thousands of points, one clean profile
- 05MeasurePRO 16.4.0 shipped · 16.5.0-beta auto-connect in testing
- 06RoadScope — signed, verifiable reports
- 07SolTecONE — the operational core, opening to beta
- 08SweptPRO — simulate on this week's drone footage
- 09LoadPRO — the axle-load partner to SweptPRO
- 10MapPRO Light — a free map for anyone
- 11Quick Tip: tune the laser from MeasurePRO — no more Putty
- 12On the Bench: a 360° LiDAR clearance rig
Tristan is joining SolTec Innovation.
Tristan brings over 25 years in the industry across survey, OS/OW routing, dispatching, and regulatory work — including nearly 10 years building a specialized pilot car fleet at ODS Fleet. He's joining us part-time, splitting his time between his own fleet and helping us on technical support, development, and R&D. That kind of field-tested judgment is hard to find, and it's going to make a real difference across the board.
Who's going to be first to run dispatch on AI — because there's no one left to hire?
Every carrier we talk to has the same problem: dispatchers are aging out or moving on, and the seat is brutally hard to fill. It's not a job you can post and backfill in two weeks — it takes years to build the judgment a good dispatcher carries in their head. That gap is exactly why we built Max Load to write, not just answer questions, and why SolTecONE's dispatch board is built to run itself where it can. We're not claiming AI replaces that judgment yet. But somebody's fleet is going to be the first to run a shift with AI doing the first pass and a human doing the exceptions — and we think it's closer than most people in this industry expect. Curious where you land on this — tell us.
RTK that actually connects. Survey-grade, no fuss.
ProfilingPRO now auto-discovers and auto-connects to your GNSS receiver — no more hunting for the right port. RTK correction over NTRIP is fully working, including Skylark and other providers, and PPP is now easier to reach for when you don't need real-time RTK but still want correction applied.
What's new:
- Auto-discovery and auto-connect for your GNSS receiver — no more hunting for the right port
- RTK correction over NTRIP fully working, including Skylark and other providers; PPP easier to reach when real-time RTK isn't needed
- Bathymetric functions, better turning radius detection, and a HUD-style map driving mode built for the cab
- Capture settings tuned to how you're actually driving — slow and detailed enough to catch a railway crossing bump, or fast and grade-only when that's all the segment needs
255 km, tens of thousands of points, one clean profile.
We ran ProfilingPRO's new capture pipeline as a real stress test on a 255 km route — tens of thousands of points, built into a single clean vertical profile. It caught every grade over 12%, every curve with a radius under 65 m, and — the one that mattered most — exactly how many times a wind blade's overhang would need to cross into the oncoming lane along the way. The convoy knew every risk point before the wheels ever turned, with time to plan around it instead of reacting to it.
Shipped now, and a big auto-connect release in testing.
Live now in 16.4.0: you can survey against a previous survey — import a RoadScope export and the app calls out what's coming, "Wire in 200 m, at book 5.33 m," and flags anything you've exceeded without logging it. The warning distance follows your speed. And paid features are visible instead of hidden — modules you haven't purchased still show up in the column, with a plain explanation of what add-on unlocks them.
What's new:
- In testing (16.5.0-beta — not yet released): the Duro receiver connects reliably from the desktop app, auto-reconnects if a cable moves, and finds itself on the network with no IP address to type in
- Laser and GPS auto-connect too — the screen just tells you which port answered and at what speed
- Settings open in their own window so your map and camera stay visible; every tool lives in one Windows menu bar; a setting changed in one place now applies everywhere — hardware, GNSS, map, and voice pages
- The voice confidence slider is now wired to the recognition engine for the first time — raising it in a noisy cab finally does something
- On RoadScope sync, you'll see exactly which company a survey is heading to, pick one when there's more than one, and get a clear warning when there isn't — the usual cause of a "synced" survey nobody can find
Reports you can actually trust.
Roughly 400 changes shipped on RoadScope over the last twelve days. The thread connecting the biggest ones: better data in, better images captured, and a report at the end you and your client can actually verify. Every RoadScope PDF is now digitally signed with a QR code linking to a public /verify page, carries a stable revision history, and is built by a three-layer narrative engine that checks every number against its source before the report ever goes out — with a "Derived Findings" layer that shows its evidence trail, and jurisdiction packs (QC/ON/MN/US) with high-voltage rules baked in. Report images can now be captured in one batch across an entire multi-segment route, with a retake editor so one bad frame doesn't mean redoing the whole set.
What's new:
- ProfilingPRO's vertical road profile is now a first-class citizen inside RoadScope — raw NMEA GNSS log import, combined profile × swept-path analysis, breakover detection, and exports to CSV, PDF, GeoJSON, LandXML, and DXF
- Max Load, the AI agent, can now write — creating routes and POIs, controlling the map, and running full workflows like reports and Route Watch on its own, with undo on any bulk change
- Also on the bench: an open connector so you can work your own RoadScope data from whichever AI assistant you already use — no need to open RoadScope at all. Same idea extends both ways: pull in data from other apps and external sources into RoadScope, not just push out. The goal is the data stays yours, and it goes wherever your workflow already lives.
Nobody else connects it all — one live ecosystem
Measure it. Map it. Move it. Prove it. Every SolTec product feeds the same live picture of the route, so the numbers your crew captures are the numbers your client verifies.
What's new:
- Measure It. — MeasurePRO · ProfilingPRO
- Map It. — RoadScope · SweptPRO · LoadPRO
- Move It. — NAV · Convoy Guardian
- Prove It. — Reports · Permits
The operational core of oversized transport.
SolTecONE connects your data and teams — from logbook to delivery — including quotes, permits, load planning, dispatch, HR, maintenance, customs, and compliance. It's not a permitting tool (that's what Nova Permits is for) — it's the system that makes sure the request is right before it gets there, and carries the move afterward. Live fleet positions from Samsara feed the dispatch map automatically, every tenant is hard-isolated at the database level, and licensing runs module by module with no forced-update walls — an operator clearing a permit at 5 a.m. never gets locked out mid-shift. We're opening this up carefully — 2 to 3 selected beta testers, with hands-on setup support, before we open it wider. If that's you, get in touch.
What's new:
- Quote It. — Submissions · Pricing
- Plan It. — Permits · Loads
- Run It. — Dispatch · Fleet
- Bill It. — Billing · Customs
Simulate on this week's drone footage — not 2019 satellite imagery.
SweptPRO answers the question that costs the most when you get it wrong on the road: does it fit in this turn? Draw your route on a satellite basemap, describe your convoy axle by axle, and watch the real swept envelope trace every turn, roundabout, and site entry — no engineer with a tape measure, no AutoTURN seat at $3,000–$8,000 a year.
What's new:
- The differentiator: the drone module reads your own DJI site photos — plug it in by USB, and SweptPRO pulls the EXIF/XMP data, calculates ground resolution, and projects your own georeferenced imagery under the simulation
- You're simulating on this week's orthophoto of the actual site, not a five-year-old satellite tile
- Convoys are built from real data — axle groups, wheelbase, per-pivot articulation limits — up to dual-lane 8- and 16-tire configurations and SPMT/Goldhofer hydraulics, not a disguised semi-trailer template
- On the Thacker Pass corridor, SweptPRO cleared all 299 intersections for a 20-foot-wide, 14'5" load before the convoy ever rolled. Zero collisions on the move.
SweptPRO's geometry needed a partner for the masses.
LoadPRO is the axle load calculator for OS/OW convoys — describe your trailer (tare weight, center of gravity, axle groups, hitch positions), place your load, and get the real axle-by-axle distribution, checked against jurisdiction limits. It's the natural complement to SweptPRO: geometry on one side, mass on the other — and its output is exactly what Dispatch and RoadScope need to build a permit.
A free map for anyone. No account, no login.
MapPRO Light is live at roadscope.app/map — a free, no-login map for anyone who needs to search an address, get A-to-B directions, or drop a few pins. Up to 30 POIs and 20 drawn routes, satellite and traffic layers, full Street View, and exports to KML, KMZ, GPX, and GeoJSON. Nothing touches our servers — everything lives in your browser. It's a genuinely useful free tool on its own, and it's also the front door to Map Pro: premium modules like SweptPRO, LoadPRO, ProfilingPRO, and RailPRO integration are visible in the sidebar, with a clear path to unlock them when you need more than 30 pins.
Quick Tip of the Week
Tune the laser right from MeasurePRO — no more Putty
MeasurePRO now lets you tune the laser itself right from the app — no more opening Putty to read or change its settings. With this new configuration panel, 98% of wire misses are now caught, and precision on smaller targets is noticeably better. Combined with the new auto-scan and auto-connect for GPS and laser, getting a kit field-ready is faster than it's ever been.
On the Bench — RoadScope · next 30 days
- SoonA 360° LiDAR rig that reads clearances like a rail profile — mounted on the front of the truck, the scanner sweeps a full circle at each point along the route, producing a single elevation "cut" of the space at that exact spot; string those cuts together and you get a continuous profile of everything around the corridor, the same logic rail uses for clearance checks, applied to the road
- SoonThe same thing in reverse for the equipment: draw the rear silhouette of the convoy and its load as an envelope connecting every point farthest from center. Overlay the two cuts, and you see immediately, at every point on the route, exactly where it wouldn't fit — no point-cloud processing marathon, just a fast cut-to-cut comparison
- SoonEvery cross-section carries its own image and, where a 360° camera was running at capture, its own position in a custom Street View-style viewer — a problem spot isn't just a number, it's a place you can click straight to on the RoadScope map. This is the missing piece for the combined horizontal + vertical clearance verdict we've been building toward all year — and we're pushing hard to have a working prototype ready for Breakbulk Americas (Booth M01)