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This is one of a selection of general interest articles relating to the application of GPS tracking.
To find out more about how Zest Tracking helps its clients to exploit GPS tracking, whether it is for vehicle tracking, mobile phone, or Blackberry tracking or dedicated tracking units please explore the rest of this site, or contact us for an informal discussion
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Vehicle Tracking – What Factors Should I Consider?
For many businesses, choosing a GPS vehicle tracking system can be a difficult decision, as there are dozens of products on the market with a very broad range of features. This article is intended to help you establish which features your business really needs and what you should look for when researching your options for a fleet GPS system.
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Vehicle tracking is certainly one of the fastest growing markets for GPS technology, with companies of all sizes taking advantage of modern GPS devices, with the ultimate objective of saving the businesses money!
One of the common motivations for using tracking is that companies want to know how fast their drivers have been driving at any particular time of the day. Their goal is to prevent unnecessary gas consumption, speeding fines, wear and tear on the vehicle and prevent accidents. Mileage reading is another parameter that can now be accessed remotely. Fuel and employee overtime can be closely monitored and verified by a GPS fleet management system. For example, excessive vehicle idling not only uses excess fuel, but it also causes unnecessary vehicle wear and tear. By effectively monitoring the data and reports produced by a vehicle tracking system, fuel costs can quite realistically be reduced by over 20 percent.
However, vehicle tracking can also add value and enable you to respond to changing circumstances. For example, if you know where all of your vehicles are, then you can keep customers informed if it appears that a scheduled visit may be running late. So, when evaluating systems and then deciding on how to implement them, it is worth stepping back and thinking about what information you need to obtain about each of your vehicles and how beneficial it would be to have instant access, and even whether you might want to send an updated itinerary directly to the vehicle's satnav?
Firstly, it is worth considering whether you need to just log the information for review a day or two later, or is there benefit in being able to locate a vehicle at any time, so that you can make operational decisions according to where your vehicles are.
There are two general categories of systems to choose from in terms of data update frequency: "Real-time" or "Passive". Passive systems rely on you downloading the data from the tracker when the vehicle returns to base. Both have the capability to provide you with vehicle speed data, vehicle stops data, length of stop data and route taken data. For most businesses, it turns out that the benefit of real-time tracking far outweigh the effort required to extract the data from a passive device, so in practice almost all systems installed today are real-time systems.
In terms of other information that is available, the key options to consider include;
- Monitoring vehicle diagnostics. Diagnostic information is beneficial as it allows you to get early warning of a vehicle problem enabling you to repair small problems before they become larger more expensive problems. Having a precise description of the problem ahead of time can streamline the repair process for technicians. Diagnostic monitoring also allows you to reduce vehicle downtime because the vehicle is better maintained.
- Geofencing. A geofence is a defined distance away from the vehicle that the vehicle must travel before it activates an alarm. The alarm can be turning on a siren in the vehicle, sending an e-mail alert to the vehicle owner or sending a Short Message Service (SMS) which is a brief text message by cell phone. Fleets use this feature for different reasons. For example, when their drivers travel beyond the boundaries of their usual work area.
- Exchanging information with a driver. Some GPS fleet tracking systems allow drivers to send and receive data by using an in vehicle display. For example, when a driver has completed a set of deliveries, he could type in a message which would verify the job was done and there were no issues. It is also possible to send a new destination directly to the drivers satnav system so that his schedule can be updated directly.
- Management reports. Different fleet tracking systems offer different reports. Some examples of the many reports you can set up and use:
- Alerts Report-active and pending diagnostic trouble code and scheduled maintenance alerts.
- After-Hours Report-allows a fleet manager to see if vehicles are being used after business hours.
- Excess Speed Report-speed violations for any or all vehicles in the fleet.
- Stop Detail Report-stop details for any vehicle in your fleet.
- Idle Time Report-shows how long a vehicle spent idling during a certain time frame.
Overall, provided that you have a good idea of the benefits that you are aiming to achieve from the use of a vehicle tracking system, then you will be able to approach your discussions with potential suppliers with confidence, and be able to help them to identify the he right options for you to consider.