A crane operator and a software developer are an unlikely business duo. However, for brothers Bernie and Tom Peoples, their app Hevway combines the best of their talents. It is set to transform how crane drivers and operators navigate the complexities of road access for cranes.
Driving a crane is a time-consuming business.
Often involving long routes through unfamiliar areas and trips to construction sites deep within the city, getting a crane to where it needs to be takes up time and resources. This doesn’t even factor in the different road regulations, axle limits and road access restrictions that change from state to state, bridge to bridge, road to road, day to day.
Bernie Peoples has over ten years of experience working in the crane industry. His time has seen him operate machines for Boom Logistics, Advanced Crane Hire, Mammoet and, currently, Metcalf Cranes in Melbourne. During his early years in the mobile crane industry operating all over Victoria, he saw the need for a better way to navigate between worksites.
“There just were no good tools for planning your route or navigating to or from sites,” he says. “I’d have spent a lot of my own time looking up where I could go and making a route to suit, which may not have been the best way.”
At that point, he reached out to his brother. Tom has an extensive career in software development, working in various industries, from telecommunications to embedded vehicle systems.
Highlighting the problem to his brother over Christmas lunch, Bernie posed the idea of a mobile app allowing crane drivers to select their machine and destination. Then, the app would develop the quickest available route that complied with regulations while avoiding delays and low bridges.
“I wasn’t too keen on the idea initially,” admits Tom. “All the information was open source; anyone could access it online. I thought that surely someone has tried this before.”
Bernie could see how valuable a tool like this would be to the mobile crane industry and persisted in getting Tom to work on a prototype. Tom eventually came around, and the duo launched ‘Hevway’ in October 2022.
Hevway, when it was launched, focused on making driving a crane efficient, practical, and safe for operators. However, as Bernie says, he began to see an increasing value in the business side of things the more Hevway developed.
“It minimises business expenses by reducing time travelling to site, delays due to traffic and fines,” he says. “Reducing operational costs and saving the crane operators time is where Hevway produces the most value.”
The last year for Hevway has been one of learning, growth, and development. After its initial launch, Tom and Bernie focused on improving the stability of Hevway and adding features requested by their customers to make Hevway fit into operators’ existing work processes.
“Hevway features maps with Approved, Conditionally Approved, and Restricted roads for each mobile crane class in Victoria up to nine-axle cranes with a GVM of 109 tonnes,” he says. “Hevway is currently moving towards routing on NHVR permits and expanding to the rest of Australia, starting with New South Wales.”
Initially, Hevway only displayed the red, orange and green roads and planned routes. It has now expanded to showing all the information an operator needs, like low structures over roads, traffic disruptions and road closures.
“Within Hevway, the user can click on any red or orange road displayed on a map to see the conditions for that road,” Tom continues. “The other aspect that we’ve streamlined is the filtering of hazards during route planning so the operators can see only what will affect the suggested route. The data is updated every 30 seconds, giving the operator real-time information relevant to the route.”
Another improvement the duo has focused on over the past 12 months is simplifying Hevway’s interface to create a more user-friendly app. Hevway now features password remembering, the option to turn the audio off and filter the information displayed on the map.
“Essentially, we’re trying to create a user-friendly product that can be tailored to the operator’s needs,” says Tom. “This last year has been about refining our product to make Hevway more valuable to the operators and businesses using it.”
Bernie’s experience in the industry has provided access and insights into how operators worked before Hevway, allowing them to design Hevway in a way that fits smoothly into the industry. Listening to their customers across Victoria, they continue to refine Hevway to have as much value as possible.
“Operators see the value in not having to spend their own time the night before a job figuring out which roads they can access and which roads they can’t,” says Bernie. “Being able to plug in your crane and destination and have the route readily available instantly is invaluable to drivers.”
As the creators of Hevway are keen to highlight, the app is growing; it holds more information with less noise and irrelevant data than other resources available online and turns results around quickly. The future, while indefinite, is starting to become clearer in terms of where they want to go.
“The next stage of our growth will be including the operations teams, as that is an area where we can compound Hevway’s value,” says Tom. “The more people we get on, the quicker we will grow, and all our growth is being invested in creating a better product.”
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