Trufast Tree Service: the tree service owner who built his own maintenance system and plugged One Step GPS into it
When a hurricane sent Trufast Tree Service’s crews to Louisiana, three of its trucks ended up in three different places, in towns where cell service came and went. Back home, owner Kyle Theobald could still see every one of them on the map. He called each crew and told them exactly which road to take.
That was GPS doing what Trufast bought it for, years ago: knowing where the trucks are. It has also helped the company track down trucks that were stolen, and talk lost crews into job sites they couldn’t find. What Kyle didn’t expect, eight years in, was that the same system would fix the problem he’d never solved: keeping an aging fleet serviced on time.
Fleet type
Bucket trucks and one-ton diesel pickupsFleet size
20+One Step GPS devices used
One Step GPS platform tools used
The problem
Trufast runs a slightly older fleet, and older trucks break down. With 20 vehicles split across two tree crews, staying on top of oil changes and service intervals meant either a near full-time coordinator or crew members who were already busy cutting trees. In practice, intervals slipped, and nobody could say for sure which truck had been serviced last.
One Step GPS has mileage- and hour-based maintenance scheduling, and Trufast wanted to bring the same data that delivers that functionality into its in-house maintenance tracking tool. The company used that data to automate its equipment records and write repair tickets directly in-app. A single, streamlined operation.
What was deployed
Kyle started building the integration himself, with help from an AI coding tool. He requested access to the One Step GPS open API, and within about 24 hours, mileage and engine-hour data from every tracked truck was flowing into his system.- GPS trackers on all fleet vehicles, in place for seven to eight years
- The One Step GPS API, connected to Trufast's in-house maintenance software using One Step GPS's published API documentation
- A daily mileage and engine-hour sync. Once a day, the system pulls odometer and engine hours for every tracked vehicle. Bucket trucks are scheduled on engine hours, because the engine runs the whole time the boom is up
- Automatic service tickets. When a vehicle passes its interval, a ticket opens in the maintenance queue. Each completed ticket records the mileage and hours at the time of service
Results
Three or four months in, the maintenance crew no longer has to remember anything. The ticket shows up when the truck is due, and they take care of it.- Service happens on schedule. Vehicles are brought in on time instead of being missed.
- About 20 hours a week of coordination removed. Kyle estimates the system replaces roughly half a full-time role spent tracking service due dates.
- A complete, automated service history for every vehicle, tied to mileage and hours. When a truck is sold, the record prints in one go.
- A data baseline for the first time. Each completed ticket adds a mileage and hours reading, so Trufast can now see how often its trucks really need service.
