The club has taken a further step towards the future by installing new equipment across its fleet – and is unique in Portugal in this respect – in order to provide improved roadside assistance.

A total of 63 light and heavy vehicles (not counting two wheelers) make up the ACP breakdown assistance fleet which are equipped with the XTraN2 fleet management system. The system permits tracking of the fleet by GPS, exchange of text messages by SMS; hands-free voice communications; automatic reporting to the control centre of vehicle status (for example, if the requested vehicle is free to attend a breakdown), and exchange of data concerning services requested and executed (this function relies on a link between the fleet management system and the Assistance Application (AA2G) currently under development.

Should replacement of parts be necessary in a broken down vehicle, the club is equipped with a bar-code reader for looking up the cost of parts as well as checking them out from warehouse stocks (in order to facilitate the restocking process). This last function will require interconnection with the GT2 Warehouse Management application, currently under development. The bar-code process also allows specific parts to be associated to individual assistance work orders (this will require an upgrade from the initial specifications, including the integration of the three applications – Fleet Management/AA2G/GT2, also under initial development).

The new equipment also features payment terminals (TPA) for facilitating the payment of services by means of debit or credit cards.