Barbara Agogliati guides two thousand drivers and four thousand trucks with an app
A nuclear engineer, he is the innovation manager of Autosped G, the leading haulage company that introduced the telematics revolution
by Lello Naso
4' min read
Key points
- The trade inherited from his father who ran the family business
- A satellite to monitor the entire fleet in real time and in detail (braking, acceleration, fuel consumption, phenomena...)
- A programme to improve driving that has halved accidents
4' min read
If it were a film, or rather a Korean television series, the favourite of Barbara Agogliati, 52, a nuclear engineer, fleet manager of Autosped G (Gavio group), four thousand lorries and two thousand drivers, Italy's leading haulage company, it would have a script with black and white flashbacks.
First scene. A spartan office in Castelnuovo Scrivia, in the province of Alessandria, a stone's throw from Milan-Genoa. The sky outside the windows is grey, the day gloomy. Black bob hair, blue eyes and glasses, laptop in hand. With a series of apps Barbara Agogliati manages the fleet data that arrive in real time. She monitors trucks and drivers, journeys, routes. She knows everything about every single vehicle. How many braking, how many accelerator strokes. The weight, the consumption. How long the truck has been in neutral.
Second scene. Black and white flashback. Early 1980s. In the house in Rozzano, on the outskirts of Milan, the Agogliati family is at the table. Pietro, Barbara's father, has a special place with double space. He keeps a large sheet of paper beside him on which are marked the routes, the drivers, the trucks of Agogliati Giuseppe and Bernardo, the family business. Next to the sheet, a telephone of the kind with a disc that rings continuously. A driver has delivered. Pietro takes notes and makes the arrangements for the next trip. Loading, departure, arrival, times. Barbara observes. Another ring, another delivery. Tomorrow it will be the turn of another family member, Giovanni, Mario, Romeo.
Agogliati Giuseppe and Bernardo, the family transport company was founded at the end of the Second World War in the Piacenza area by Pietro's father, Barbara's grandfather, and cousin Mario, father of Romeo, the current managing director. Grandfather used to deliver wood with mules. Then it became a modern transport company, with the first trucks on the first paved roads. In the 1960s, Giuseppe and Bernardo moved to Rozzano, next to the ring road of the Milan of the economic boom. Growth continued until the 2000s, when the Agogliati family and the Gavio family decided to merge their petroleum products transport activities into a single company. Fifty-five per cent of G&A is now held by Autosped G of the Gavio group, chaired by Luca Giorgi, a colossus with EUR 835 million in revenues and eighteen subsidiaries.
A mix between mechanic and manager
"My father," says Barbara, "stayed with the company and continued to manage the fleet. He retired in 2020, not that many years have passed, but from the point of view of management and technological transformation it is a geological era. My father, in the beginning, was in charge of trip planning, vehicles, maintenance. He was a mix between mechanic and manager. Even today he still recognises a truck breakdown from the sound of the engine. Another world'.
