How Do Companies Track Their Vehicles?

Do you still track your vehicles with an Excel spreadsheet?

Excel is fine for keeping track of delivery mileage and delivery times if you have one truck. It’s not all especially clunky if you are tracking two trucks.

But for a scalable solution to tracking your entire fleet, GPS tracking and telematics are integrated into your billing, inventory, timekeeping, personnel, maintenance, and personnel systems. GPS tracking isn’t about following a red vehicle icon on a map anymore.

The Basics of GPS

You can stick a GPS monitor into the glove compartment of your company car or truck. You can hardwire it into your vehicle’s onboard diagnostics. You can conceal a GPS tracker in cargo, equipment, or at various locations on a vehicle that operators are unlikely to check.

You are probably aware of how the tracker works.

• The GPS tracker picks up signals from at least four out of 27 GPS satellites serving North America.
• The device calculates the vehicle’s location by comparing a timestamp generated by the GPS and the time stamp transmitted by the satellite.
• The GPS tracking unit sends real-time information about the longitude and latitude of your vehicle (or your property), accurate to 0.006 meters (about a quarter of an inch) for every second your vehicle travels to a tracking app or management software. Modern GPS tracking units can refresh the location about once a second.

GPS tracking isn’t infallible, but it comes close. Buildings, bridges, tunnels, and trees can block satellite signals. Sometimes, tall buildings block or bounce signals. Since the system updates about once a second, these are temporary limitations.

Even though the GPS tracking unit updates once a second, it can take 10 seconds to deliver data through the cloud or your cell phone network. For most applications, updating data every 10 seconds is fast enough.

Actionable Information Beyond Location

Some GPS platforms provide dispatchers with information about driver habits.

They transmit reports of harsh acceleration, sudden braking, wide turns, and skids. They immediately alert the dispatch office in case of a crash with a text to your dispatcher’s or manager’s cell phone. Your tracking system can be set up to send your managers an SMS if a vehicle travels outside the geofences you set for it.

GPS telematics can be hardwired into onboard diagnostic systems. (You may need the permission of the leasing company to do this if you lease your fleet.) You will have an audit trail of when the cab door is opened and closed. You will know how long your driver takes to turn the ignition and go, how long the vehicle idles in one location when your driver arrives at a delivery destination, and how long it takes to get the package out of the truck and to the consumer.

You can monitor engine performance, tire pressure, fuel efficiency, and brake pressure. You can get an alert of needed mechanical inspections and reminders of scheduled maintenance.

Your GPS can be set to search the Internet for recall alerts, and it can automate reports for mileage and trip logs required by federal law, as well as expense reports and billable travel and transportation.
But that’s not all.

GPS Boosts Both Efficiency and Control

GPS monitoring systems can be fitted into software that calculates the shortest route for delivery and the trip back to the office.

Your software can empower you to give your customers an honest answer based on real-time road conditions when they ask you when to expect a delivery or the arrival of your repair crew.

GPS monitoring can help you reroute vehicles to make critical deliveries and service calls faster. It can help your drivers choose between the shortest and fastest routes.

Built-in sensors linked to your tracking system alert you immediately in the event of an accident. They provide potentially lifesaving time and location data for emergency crews and the police. And they can alert both the driver and the dispatcher when a battery is running down, when fuel consumption is fluctuating, when tire pressure is low or high, and when a diagnostic troubleshooting code should be displayed on the dashboard, even if it isn’t.

Your drivers will no longer be able to conceal taking a two-hour lunch or traveling to a work site by the “scenic route.” Your insurance company may lower your premiums just for installing the system, but your insurance costs will definitely go down with your good driving records.

Just how much can you save when you outfit your fleet with GPS?

• GPS systems, including driver monitoring, typically lower insurance premiums by about 15%.
• Ensuring your drivers stay within the speed limit can lower fuel costs by 7% to 14%.
• Vehicles driven at 60 mph burn about 9% less fuel than vehicles driven at 70 miles per hour, and driving at 50 miles an hour, where practical, can reduce fuel costs by 15%

Add to these benefits of GPS tracking increased customer satisfaction, tighter delivery times, and a better reputation. Once your employees realize that GPS helps them do their jobs better and opens opportunities for higher pay, they will thank you for installing the system.

Choosing the Right Vendor for Your Company’s Vehicle GPS Tracking

GPS Technologies has the inventory and experience you need to choose the right GPS tracking system at the right price. Since 1999, we have provided commercial and teen tracking systems to companies and parents throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America. Our GPS systems provide the information you need for real-time tracking of valuable property and irreplaceable people.

Contact GPS Technologies online for more information on how GPS tracking can work for your company. Or call us at (847) 382-5107 weekdays from 8 until 5 Eastern for answers to all your questions about GPS tracking for cars, trucks, and fleets.

Categorised in: Fleet Tracking

This post was written by GPS Technologies