If you have been managing a fleet of vehicles very long, you know that every minute a vehicle is on the road is costing money. So, how much are you spending on unauthorized vehicle use and on drivers who waste time and money to reduce work? Managing this cost alone by tracking vehicle movement could make you the company hero for the next year.
There are several ways to abuse the privilege of driving literally any kind of company vehicle:
- running errands on the way from the last business stop back to the garage
- using the truck for your weekend moving business
- using the company car to take your kids places on weekends
Each of these abuses of the privilege of driving a company vehicle can be detected by tracking vehicle movement. With a simple GPS tracking device that attaches to the steering column of each vehicle, you can not only know where each vehicle is at any moment (because you will be tracking vehicle movement), but you can also use the capability of tracking vehicle movement and save the history to prove where each vehicle has been and when it was there.
Consider the cost to the company if every vehicle is being driven an extra 100 miles per week. Assuming that your vehicles average 10 miles per gallon around town, each vehicle will use ten gallons of gas. If gas is selling for $2.75, each vehicle is costing the company an extra $27.50 per week. You can do the rest of the math to carry that out by the number of vehicles being used and then multiplying by 52 weeks. That comes to $1,430 per vehicle per year – and that’s just for gas!
By the time you add up the pro rated costs for everything else, you could be saving a bundle by tracking vehicle use. Take a few minutes to figure it out. Gather all of the costs on a ‘per vehicle’ and a per mile basis: fuel, oil, insurance, maintenance, parts, wear and tear, tires, license tags, taxes and the risks of having the vehicle on the road.
When you add up all of these costs for every vehicle that might be in use for something other than business, the amount could be staggering if it is widespread. But if you invested the small cost of tracking vehicle movement with a GPS tracking device, you could pay for the device and the monitoring service and still hand the boss a huge amount of money. If your fleet is like most, the cost of tracking vehicle activity with a GPS device would be recovered in just three months. In just ninety days you could expect to recover the cost of the device for tracking vehicle movement and the cost of a full year of monitoring.
Finally, consider that I’ve only asked you to think about the cost of unauthorized use of company vehicles and the cost savings you could achieve by tracking vehicle use. Now think about the money you could save if you could prove that some of your drivers were intentionally taking longer routes from one place to the next, or that by tracking vehicle movement you could prove that some of your drivers are sitting somewhere killing time. The more you think about the value of tracking vehicle movement, the greater the potential savings you can achieve for your company.
For more information about the benefits of tracking vehicle behavior, get the free report, “7 Ways Your Company Can Save Thousands of Dollars With GPS Fleet Tracking.” Many companies have substantially increased their revenue and lowered their costs by installing a GPS tracking system for their fleet. To calculate the ROI for your company, see the GPS vehicle ROI calculator.
GPS For Trucks Does More Than Locate Stolen Vehicles
In: GPS Systems
16 Feb 2010Fleet managers already know that if they have a GPS tracking device in a truck the police will be able to find it faster. The difference this makes for your company’s business depends on what is in the trucks.
A semi loaded with high-end electronics would seem to be an attractive objective for a thief. For a semi loaded with rhubarb and Brussels sprouts, you might find a thief willing to pay you to take it back. No matter what the cargo, GPS for trucks makes sense if there is a risk of theft. Desirable cargo would seem to make the investment in a GPS device worth the investment. But what if your fleet really does move rhubarb and Brussels sprouts?
Fleet managers need to know that GPS for trucks does a lot more than locate stolen vehicles. It will help you manage your fleet more efficiently than you ever dreamed possible. Here are five other things you can do with GPS for trucks.
1. Know where every truck is at every moment with GPS for trucks. When you know where every truck is, you can improve customer satisfaction by monitoring distance to destination and notifying the customer if the driver is running early or late. Or do some valuable troubleshooting when you know where the nearest service vehicle is to a customer with an emergency.
2. Save fuel and save money when you invest in GPS for trucks. When you are able to track the routes your drivers are using, you can help them find faster, more direct, or more fuel-efficient routing. Choosing the best route will save time and save fuel, which will, in turn, save money. You will also know who is wasting time on the road, sitting on the side of the road, or at each stop. You can also improve productivity and save more money.
3. Control where your trucks are taken with geo-fencing options. GPS for trucks will allow you to create “no-go zones” with to alert you and the driver if a truck is being taken out of a reasonable area. Do you have a truck coming back with an extra 300 miles on it per run? You can use the tracking and mapping capabilities of GPS for trucks to know exactly where that truck has been.
4. Reduce operating costs for each vehicle equipped with GPS for trucks. There is a clear connection between vehicle maintenance and vehicle operating cost. When you install GPS for trucks you will be able to monitor maintenance needs and receive alerts when a problem is beginning, instead of when it disables the vehicle for several hours.
5. Improve driver and vehicle safety with reports and alerts. You will know if you have drivers to race up to an intersection and then slam on the brakes. You will also know if they waste fuel and overburden the engine by racing away from the intersection. You can set up alerts to let a driver know when the speed limit is being exceeded and send you a report.
These are just five of the ways GPS for trucks can help you manage your fleet more efficiently and effectively. You will save time, improve productivity of both the trucks and the drivers, and you’ll save a bundle of money for the company. Isn’t it time you learned more about the many benefits of GPS for trucks?
When most people think about GPS they think about getting directions, finding a stolen vehicle, or, perhaps, parents tracking the whereabouts of teenage children. For a business with a fleet of vehicles, however, a GPS vehicle tracking system increases productivity when used to its full capability.
If you have a fleet of any kind of vehicles on the roads for any reason, there are several ways a GPS vehicle tracking system can increase productivity of both the vehicles and the drivers. Whether you are a customer service manager, a fleet manager or the owner of the company, GPS tracking can help you increase productivity in several areas and show a positive return on your investment in 90 days or less.
You work for a plumbing company and you have noticed that three of the plumbers you have on the road spend far longer on many jobs than the other seven plumbers. But you don’t know why. A GPS vehicle tracking system would tell you that those three plumbers actually do the job in the same amount of time. The difference is that they spend the extra time sitting in the truck with the engine idling. This behavior affects gas mileage, individual job productivity, company customer service productivity, and customer satisfaction (because the customers can see the trucks still sitting outside their homes). The data from your GPS vehicle tracking system will report to you how long the engine is idling, where it is located while idling, and exactly when the engine was turned on and off, as well as how long the vehicle stayed in any single place all day.
A GPS vehicle tracking system can help you improve efficiencies and productivity in several ways, as the account above demonstrates. Here are some additional ways you can expect to improve productivity and efficiency:
- Track and download reports with your GPS vehicle tracking system on the time spent at each location by each driver. Some companies report employee productivity increases of as much as 30%.
- Detect and eliminate excessive engine idling with your GPS vehicle tracking system and improve fuel efficiencies, reduce fuel costs, and reduce fuel consumption.
- Use the monitoring and reports provided by your GPS vehicle tracking system to monitor driving habits of employees and correct bad habits that are dangerous or inefficient. These actions will also help you keep your vehicles on the road longer, reduce maintenance costs, and save fuel and fuel costs.
- Use of a GPS vehicle tracking system to locate and direct or redirect the closest vehicles to customer locations. For any company trying to survive in a competitive environment, high productivity and performance in customer service might be your strongest competitive advantage. Knowing which vehicle is closest to a customer with an immediate need, will reduce response times, increase customer satisfaction, improve customer retention, and improve fuel and driver/employee efficiency and productivity.
- Installing a GPS vehicle tracking system in each vehicle in your fleet will improve your cost efficiency and improve your job productivity. Because a nearly invisible GPS device attached to the OBDII connection in the vehicle makes it possible to receive an immediate alert notification if there is a vehicle theft and because the GPS device allows you to pinpoint the location of the vehicle every second, retrieving the vehicle and apprehending the thief is much more likely. Most insurance companies offer reduced rates on insurance for all vehicles that are part of a GPS vehicle tracking system.
- The geofencing option that is part of a GPS vehicle tracking system allows you to set boundaries for each vehicle. If a vehicle is taken outside that defined area, you receive an instant alert. With this capability you can not only protect your vehicles at night, but you can detect any unauthorized use of company vehicles.
- Your GPS vehicle tracking system will also provide maintenance alerts. This can make a critical difference in both extending the life of the vehicle and preventing costly break-downs. It can also help you detect problems when they are just beginning instead of when they are big repairs that are both expensive to perform and that keep the vehicle off the road for some period of time.
Improving productivity is a critical objective in most companies. Understanding the potential impact of a GPS vehicle tracking system for your company is a very potent argument for making the investment, especially when you will save enough to pay for the entire cost in 90 days or less.
Managing any fleet of vehicles is a complex and stressful job. The larger the fleet, the more valuable the cargo, or the more critical the fleet to business operations, the more stressful the management task will be. If you manage a fleet of vehicles of any size you need to know that GPS fleet management makes your life easier.
You might know that GPS fleet management equipment allows you to see (on your laptop) exactly where every vehicle is at a particular point in time. But do you know that this same equipment also maintains a complete history for each vehicle of where, when and how that vehicle has traveled over any time frame? If you notice an anomaly at any time, you can download a report of the history of each appropriate vehicle and analyze the cause for the anomaly and determine what corrective action is appropriate.
You probably know that GPS fleet management equipment allows you to watch your computer screen and see movements of your vehicles in “real time” in order to monitor everything that is happening with your fleet. You might not know that GPS fleet management equipment also allows you to receive alerts or historical reports when drivers are speeding, idling, stopped, traveling, moving outside a predefined area or driving unsafely in a number of other ways. You can also track driving habits that negatively affect fuel efficiency or the useful life of the vehicle.
If you choose a GPS fleet management system that includes a maintenance scheduling system, you will be able to keep track of maintenance needs of each vehicle organized into an easy-to-read report whenever you want an update. This feature of the GPS fleet management system also alerts you to a number of maintenance problems when they begin instead of when the vehicle breaks down at an inopportune time.
GPS fleet management will also help you save a bundle of money and run your fleet in ways that are environmentally friendly. You can monitor fuel mileage reports and compare the data to maintenance schedules and engine tuning details. You can compare fuel mileage with actual routes traveled by individual vehicles and/or drivers.
Many GPS fleet management systems also allow you to disable your vehicles to prevent theft, as well as tracking with minute-by-minute pinpointing if a vehicle should be stolen. This capability alone will qualify your fleet for a discount on the insurance rates charged by most leading insurance companies.
Many of these capabilities of GPS fleet management systems will also allow you to monitor and coach driver behavior. The reports available for instant download can be used to coach drivers in achieving better response times, more efficient travel routes, greater fuel efficiency, safer driving habits, and more. This is a wonderful contribution to the efforts of many organizations to improve employee productivity. You will have the added opportunity to improve vehicle productivity, extend vehicle life, and operate the vehicles in the fleet in ways that help to protect the environment with the various benefits of GPS fleet management.
If, for example, you notice when you monitor the vehicles leaving the garage each morning that most of the vehicles travel the same route for the first eighteen miles, but one driver takes a different route, not only is your curiosity engaged, but you wonder why this is happening. Further investigation reveals that this particular driver takes the same route every day. As you review the reports from your GPS fleet management system, you discover that this driver is your most productive driver and reaches his first stop first with uncanny consistency. You decide to download a customized report that shows the progress of each vehicle on a minute-by-minute basis. Your analysis reveals that while the other drivers spend 37 minutes idling in traffic, your lone wolf is making uninterrupted progress toward his first destination. GPS fleet management has demonstrated a way to increase efficiency and reduce costs.
GPS fleet management will make your life easier. It can help you:
- track all movements of every vehicle and maintain a full history on the movements of every vehicle
- monitor driving habits for use in coaching drivers in achieving greater efficiencies and saving fuel, time and costs
- manage maintenance of the fleet with greater ease
- protect vehicles against theft or find them quickly if stolen
- improve employee productivity
- manage vehicles for greater efficiency and longer life.
For a small investment in the GPS device, a minimal monthly monitoring fee, and a few minutes for installation, you can be saving time and money instantly. Most companies that install GPS fleet management equipment find that they save enough in the first 90 days to pay for equipment, installation and the first year of monitoring.
For more information about GPS fleet management, get the free report “7 Ways Your Company Can Save Thousands of Dollars With GPS Fleet Tracking.” Many companies have substantially increased their revenue and lowered their costs by installing a GPS tracking system for their fleet. To calculate the ROI for your company in under 30 seconds, see the Fleet GPS ROI calculator.
As a fleet manager you have probably experienced an afternoon or evening when you were asking, “Truck 27, Where Are You?” You’ll never ask that question again when your trucks are equipped with mobile GPS. This simple device, installed in just seconds, allows a fleet manager to know the exact location, speed, and status of every truck you have on the road (and the ones in the garage).
From your central monitoring computer, you can track the movements of every truck all day. And when you arrive in the office in the morning, you can review the movements of any trucks overnight. Have you ever thought a particular truck was racking up far more mileage than it should? Would you like to be able to prove that two of your employees are using that truck every weekend as a moving van for their moonlighting business? With mobile GPS you can track where every vehicle has been driven since installation of the system.
Have you wondered why Truck 36 seems to take longer to reach local destinations than other trucks and drivers? With mobile GPS in the truck, you can prove that the drivers are taking the longest possible route to each destination and stopping at home for a very long lunch.
Or perhaps you think several of the trucks are using too much fuel for the miles they are putting on the odometer. Mobile GPS in the truck would tell you that they are meeting in the parking lot of an empty warehouse for card games every afternoon, leaving the trucks idling so nobody will know.
Mobile GPS will certainly provide all the ammunition you need to prove that you have a few slackers on your team or that your vehicles are being used after hours by some enterprising drivers. But there are also many positive results you can achieve with this technology. For example, by monitoring routes taken by your drivers, you can help them identify more fuel-efficient or faster routes. Mobile GPS tracking will reduce fuel use and cost, reduce carbon emissions, and increase productivity of these drivers.
Instead of walking the garage at the end of each driver’s run to note mileage and make other checks of the vehicle, you can automate the data gathering with a mobile GPS system. Then you can use that time to analyze the information and still get home in time for supper. As you analyze the information the mobile GPS system will gather about your vehicles and your drivers you will be able to reduce costs, improve driving safety and fuel-efficient driving habits, improve productivity, improve customer satisfaction, maintain vehicles more efficiently, extend the life of vehicles, and protect your drivers and your vehicles from theft and other dangers.
Consider, also, this very different benefit of a mobile GPS system in your fleet. At 10 am, you notice that the truck 12 is sitting on the side of the Interstate, but shows no indication of a vehicle problem. You assume the driver has pulled over to check something. You continue to monitor, noting that the truck has not moved at 11:30. You try to call your driver and he does not answer the phone. You continue to monitor and call until noon. By this time, you are concerned. Using your mobile GPS tracking system, you locate a truck returning to the garage that is about 10 miles beyond the location of truck 12. You call the driver and ask her to stop and check on truck 12. You continue to monitor the arrival of truck 16. Within a minute you receive a phone call from the driver of truck 16 informing you that the driver of truck 12 is in bad shape and appears to have suffered a stroke. She has called 911 and will accompany the driver of truck 12 to the hospital and remain there until his family arrives. You then call the driver’s wife, and take a van to deliver another driver to complete the run for truck 12, pick up the driver of truck 16 and take her back to her truck (unless she followed the ambulance with it), and return to the hospital to wait with the driver’s wife. Mobile GPS saves a life and keeps a delivery on schedule.
Mobile GPS in every vehicle in the fleet can save money, save time, increase productivity, reduce fuel usage and carbon emissions, reduce your management time, protect your vehicles, and even save the life of a driver. All things considered, don’t you need mobile GPS for your fleet?
Installing a vehicle tracking system in every family car has been a sensible decision for many families today. If your family has not considered a GPS tracking system in every family car, I encourage you to give it serious thought. You might also want to consider installing a system in your RV, Boat, ATV and other vehicle.
The obvious use of a vehicle tracking system is to locate the vehicle if it is stolen. Installation of a device will provide real time location of the car. Some systems will even tell you if the vehicle is in a garage or parking deck. Because these devices make finding a stolen vehicle so much easier and faster for police to locate, insurance companies offer discounts of five to fifteen percent when they are installed.
Not only will a vehicle tracking system help you locate a stolen vehicle, it will notify you with an erratic driving alert when the thief starts driving to escape the area of the theft. A system that includes a dash board camera will even identify the thief to police.
A vehicle tracking system can also be used for spying or tracking the activities of family members. This benefit can, of course, have both positive and negative implications. You can use it to track the movements and activities of teenagers or of a spouse if you have reason to suspect them of undesirable activity. But there are several very positive uses, as well. A vehicle tracking system in the car of an aging parent or a parent with Alzheimer’s Disease can protect their autonomy while assuring you that their driving is safe or knowing where they are at all times in case they become lost.
The ability of some vehicle tracking system equipment to track driving habits can also make them a valuable driving instruction tool for teens or other new drivers. Your system can be programmed to track driving speed, cornering speed, how quickly the driver accelerates after a stop, idle time at a location, and other safe and efficient driving habits.
Reviewing driving practices can help a new driver improve their skills quickly and efficiently. Safe and efficient driving habits by all drivers can reduce fuel consumption, reduce fuel costs, and help to protect the environment. Some vehicle tracking system equipment can even be programmed to provide an alert when it is time for the engine to be serviced and when the tires are improperly inflated.
Your vehicle tracking system will also include GPS driving directions. Use of directions will save time and provide the most direct or the shortest route to your destination. Some systems also provide the most efficient route. You might choose a high-end vehicle tracking system that not only includes directions, but includes capabilities to provide voice directions and to monitor traffic along the route and notify you if there is an accident or traffic jam ahead. It can then provide an alternate route. Many parents choose this option because it prevents teen drivers from becoming lost when they need to detour around traffic.
Finally, a vehicle tracking system can provide the option of “geo-fencing” to define limits or boundaries for safety. This can be used, for example, to notify you if a teenager enters an unapproved part of town. It can also be used to provide an alert if an aging parent leaves a customary location.
A vehicle tracking system can certainly be used for spying on family members. But it’s more positive value makes it worth considering for every family vehicle. The reduction in insurance costs could recover the installation costs in as little as three years. The fuel cost savings achieved by more economical driving habits and the increased safety of your family members makes vehicle tracking a smart choice for many families. Just choose the features you want on your system and start sleeping better at night.
U.S. Defense Monitoring systems and cell phones have brought together several communications technologies in ways that enable parents to know where their teenagers are at any time. Teen tracking technology actually utilizes other vehicle tracking applications in combination with global positioning systems that provide real time information and the capability to monitor the activities and movements of anyone with the appropriate device on their vehicle, phone, or person. Because the technology is both available and affordable, every parent should consider teen tracking technology to keep their teens safe.
Teen tracking technology gives parents the tools to help their teen-aged children exercise the freedom they want while also letting parents know where they are and if they are safe. If, for example, your teen’s car is equipped with a GPS device, you can monitor driving speed, receive alerts when it is time to service the vehicle, know the current location of the vehicle, receive alerts if the vehicle is moved or stolen, and even create “geo-fences” around areas your teens are or are not permitted to visit.
There are other clear benefits of using teen tracking technology. Because the technology uses a GPS system, parents can upgrade to the devices that provide additional options, such as real time re-routing if there is heavy traffic or an accident ahead. Teen tracking technology will save time for the driver and keep the driver on a planned route instead of becoming lost when attempting to detour around a traffic jam. Some of these systems will provide both the street address and the name of the establishment when the teen is located by the teen tracking system.
Teen tracking can be used in several ways to monitor your child’s activities:
– monitor driving speed
– monitor engine and tire safety
– monitor approved and unapproved locations
– monitor improvements in your teen’s driving capabilities
– monitor if others are in the vehicle with your teen
– monitor most frequently visited locations
– put a geo-fence around undesirable areas
Why use teen tracking to monitor your teen’s activities behind the wheel? Consider these facts:
– Automobile accidents are the leading cause of death for teens in the USA.
– One teen dies in an automobile accident every day of the year in the USA.
– Speed and lack of experienced judgment are the two most common reasons for teen auto accidents.
– The knowledge of being monitored may reduce the chances of your teen being involved in a serious crash.
– The knowledge of being monitored could provide the only reason your teen needs to resist peer pressure to make bad choices.
Carefully programmed and consistently used, teen tracking can also help you protect your child from becoming a victim of crime. The National Crime Prevention Council states that “for all major types of crimes, people aged 12 to 19 are the most frequent victims.” Teen tracking technology, clearly programmed to protect the safety of your teen and not to spy on him or her, could get help to your child before he or she becomes a victim of crime.
Every parent knows the crime statistics. We all know that teens are the most likely people to go missing. We all know there has been a recent increase in child abduction and in human trafficking. An inexperienced teenager, lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood and stranded by a vehicle breakdown is most at risk of becoming a victim of crime. The ability to quickly locate and send appropriate help to your teen could mean the difference between life and death.
When you consider that danger is always present and that no teenager has the experience to always think rationally and logically in a tense situation isn’t teen tracking worth the cost and the time to explain to your child? Isn’t the safety of your child and your peace of mind reason enough why every parent should consider teen tracking technology?
Sales of GPS fleet tracking systems have grown by more than 300% in each of the last two years. The reason is simple: it saves money and increases productivity. If you have a fleet of five or more company vehicles and you have not investigated the savings you can achieve with GPS fleet tracking, now is the time to take action. Don’t lose thousands – even tens of thousands – of dollars this year because you failed to take action.
For as little as $300 per vehicle and a small monthly maintenance fee, you can take full advantage of this constantly evolving technology to reduce your company’s operating costs. Here’s how GPS fleet tracking saves your company money.
1. Improve navigation. Your GPS fleet tracking system will be fully integrated with Google maps. This enables drivers to identify the fastest, most direct or most fuel-efficient route to a destination (whether it is within the city or across the country). The navigation function also provides live time reports on traffic conditions along the way, even providing detours around traffic jams. If the weather is bad, you can choose terrain views to see what is ahead. Navigation functionality in your GPS fleet tracking system also allows fleet managers to know precisely where every vehicle is at any time. This makes it easy to identify the closest vehicle to an emergency situation and quickly re-route a vehicle.
2. Monitor and improve driving habits. Because your GPS fleet tracking system compiles data on driver behavior, you can identify drivers who are habitual speeders or who consistently brake hard or who accelerate too fast from a stop. You will have regular reports of every trip taken by every vehicle. You can program the GPS fleet tracking system to alert the driver when the speed limit is exceeded by more than 5 mph and to alert the fleet manager when the speed limit is exceeded by more than 10 mph. You can track exact routes and know which drivers are taking detours or are sitting somewhere with the engine idling for extended periods of time. By monitoring and reviewing this data with your drivers you can improve driving habits and safety.
3. Accident and theft reporting capabilities. If a driver is involved in an accident, the GPS fleet tracking system will provide a complete analysis of the incident with precise data on the speed and direction of the vehicle. This results in accurate and defensible information about the accident for police and insurance companies and makes completing insurance claims faster and easier. In the event of a theft, you will be able to track exactly where the vehicle is at any given moment and this information can be shared with police. You also have the ability to lock doors, disable the starter and cause the horn to start blasting from your central office with your GPS fleet tracking system.
4. Vehicle monitoring and maintenance management. Your GPS fleet tracking system will also have the option for including a maintenance tool. This can interface with the vehicle’s on-board computer to provide notices of times for routine servicing, low tire pressure, evolving engine or system problems or excessive carbon emissions. This enables the fleet manager to either alert the driver of a problem or to bring the vehicle in for service or repairs before there is a complete breakdown requiring emergency action.
Use of these four major capabilities of a GPS fleet tracking system will help your company save money in the following ways:
– Use less fuel and save on fuel costs
– Reduce engine maintenance and operating costs
– Save 5-35% on insurance costs per vehicle
– Eliminate damaging or costly bad driver habits
– Increase productivity and reduce overtime
– Reduce paperwork for drivers, fleet manager and payroll
– Eliminate unauthorized breaks, side trips, or after hours use of vehicles
– Improve customer service and customer satisfaction
In most cases, companies that installed a GPS fleet tracking system recovered the total cost of installation and the first year’s maintenance costs in 3 to 6 months. Some recovered their entire annual cost in just one month. A GPS fleet tracking system is becoming an essential tool of effective and efficient fleet managers throughout the world in all industries, services and businesses. Can you afford to continue spending too much on fuel, insurance, operating costs, employee overtime and employee waste? Isn’t it time you find out how a GPS fleet tracking system can save your company money?
No matter what kind of vehicles your company owns, there are many ways to benefit from fleet GPS tracking data. The GPS devices can be used to help you protect your investment in the vehicles. More important, the data the devices monitor and send to your tracking station will help your employees effectively manage routing and extract information that can be used for a wide variety of management processes. If your company owns several vehicles, you need a fleet GPS system to make the most of your investment.
Types of Information You Can Gather
A fleet GPS system will be connected to a satellite mapping service that will also be able to provide information at the street level and a satellite image of streets and buildings anywhere your vehicles might go. Upon request, these mapping services can be programmed to distinguish truck routes, as well. Other information includes:
- Precise location of each vehicle up to the minute.
- Vehicle route history.
- Ability to show the proximity of vehicles to a given location.
- Notification and alerts about traffic violations, unsafe driving practices, and driving habits that waste fuel.
- Maintenance history and schedules.
- Fuel saving suggestions.
- Vehicle theft protection and recovery tools.
- Geo-fencing capabilities.
- Instant calculation of alternate routes.
Ways to Use the Data
The abundant data provided by a fleet GPS tracking system can be used in many ways to improve efficiencies, reduce fleet operating costs, improve customer service, make operations more fuel efficient, and even reduce accidents and vehicle break-downs. Whether you use you vehicles to haul freight over long distances, to respond to human emergencies, to provide product servicing and maintenance or to transport your sales force, fleet GPS tracking can help you in often unexpected ways.
1. Driver information provides the basis for coaching or re-training drivers who your fleet GPS data shows to be driving unsafely or in ways that waste fuel or damage the vehicles.
2. Driver information from fleet GPS tracking can provide the basis for performance based compensation and bonus programs, and the metrics tracking for implementation of the program.
3. Driver and route tracking maintained by your fleet GPS device provides needed documentation for dispute resolution of customer complaints, servicing time, schedule discrepancies.
4. Provide directions when a driver is lost or to redirect a driver around traffic jams or accidents causing long delays or highway closures.
5. Ability to define routes on the basis of travel time, fuel efficiency or route characteristics.
6. Identify and redirect the closest vehicle in response to an emergency.
7. Program driver and dispatcher alerts when vehicles exceed safe speeds.
8. Create anti-theft measures, such as disabling starters, locking doors, triggering sirens and defining geographic boundaries.
9. Verify time cards, automate billing and accounting steps and avoid mistakes.
10. Improve employee productivity by as much as 35%.
11. Monitor time per stop and after hours or other unauthorized vehicle use.
12. Use your scheduling accuracy and reliability as a marketing tool.
13. Rack up insurance discounts on each vehicle equipped with a fleet GPS tracking device.
The capabilities of fleet tracking expand year by year. Investment in fleet GPS tracking and monitoring will often pay for itself in money saved with fuel savings in just the first year. As your fleet becomes more efficient and more productive with these tools and the abundance of data provided, your company will reap the benefits above and more.
If you are not using a fleet GPS system you are missing out on far too many business efficiency tools. Shouldn’t you make the investment today?
It is 10:00 pm. Do you know where your cargo is? You probably do not know with any certainty unless you are using some kind of truck GPS tracking system. If you move cargo of any kind, you need to know exactly where it is at all times. Even more, you need to know that it is safe and that it will arrive at the destination on schedule.
If you own a fleet of trucks, there is far more to managing that fleet than just knowing where each truck is at a given moment. Those trucks are critical business assets. You need to know those assets are being properly managed. You can improve asset management with truck GPS tracking.
Everyone with a cell phone knows what GPS tracking is all about. The GPS device sends a signal to a satellite which transfers it to a tracking station. Truck GPS tracking goes a step beyond this, allowing the fleet manager to see the position of each truck on a single-view map. Some systems also use satellite imaging to show the surrounding topography and streets.
With truck GPS routing systems, the same GPS technology is used to map out the best route for each truck. You might define the best route as the most direct, the fastest, or even the route that supports maximum fuel efficiency. Once the truck is on the road, the system can identify traffic jams, accidents and other situations the driver should avoid. It can then calculate a new route and communicate it instantly to the driver.
A good truck GPS tracking system also offers certain protections in the event of an attempted theft or hi-jacking. With geofencing technology you can define parameters of the region within which the truck should be operating. If it is taken outside of those parameters, you receive an alert. If the truck is actually stolen, you will be alerted and you can use the system to disable the truck or call attention to it with very narrow geofencing, disabling the starter, locking doors and triggering horn blasts. Finding the truck is as simple as looking at your map and calling police.
Truck GPS devices cost as little as $300 each, can be installed in less than one minute, and immediately begin to gather and communicate vital information back to your home office about how the truck is being driven. It also begins to build a history of every time and place the truck is driven, when it is serviced, fuel efficiency and much more.
The data received through the truck GPS monitoring system will help your managers handle your trucks as the costly investments they are. They can then be managed and serviced in order to protect the engines, get the most use from tires, and achieve optimal fuel efficiencies. If you are operating trucks on the highways, you are spending a very significant amount of operating capital on fuel. Fuel economy is a good business practice and an environmentally responsible outlook.
The U.S. Department of Energy conducted a recent study of fuel efficiency and other maintenance costs for vehicles driven in particular ways and at specific speeds. A few of their most significant findings relevant to truck GPS tracking are:
- Running at 60 mph instead of 50 or 55 requires 73% more horsepower from the engine; running at 70 mph uses 159% more horsepower.
- For every mile per hour above 50 mph, the fuel consumption in increased by 1.5%. This means running at 70 mph uses 30% more fuel.
- Running at 70 mph instead of 50 mph will double the wear on tires.
- Running at 70 mph instead of 60 mph will increase maintenance cost by 80%.
Other studies have also demonstrated that running up to a traffic light or stop sign and slamming on brakes and accelerating too quickly also drastically cut into fuel economy. Other practices, such as not leaving the truck idling or following routes that can be expected to involve extensive idling in traffic will also dramatically reduce fuel economy. All of these habits can be detected and addressed with the help of truck GPS tracking.
Fleet management involves far more than simply dispatching a particular truck and driver to a particular location with a load of cargo (whatever that might be). Truck fleet asset management also includes fostering safe and efficient driving styles and practices, making the most efficient route choices and properly maintaining the equipment. With a truck GPS tracking system, you can make the task of truly managing these assets easier and more scientific for your staff.
About this blog
Welcome to Geosavi - The Power of Where... Our talented editors will be posting interesting and useful articles every week on the topics that you care about. We hope to cover issues stretching from personal tracking, teenager tracking, all the way to fleet tracking and asset monitoring.
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Categories
- Fleet Vehicle Tracking (9)
- GPS Systems (1)
- Personal Vehicle Tracking (1)
- Teenager Tracking (1)
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