While vehicle tracking may be new to your business, GPS (Global Position System) is a proven technology that is fast becoming the industry standard for businesses with truck fleets. By not tracking your trucks, you could be putting your business and employees at risk.
GPS Tracking provide fleet management systems that enable companies to track, monitor and manage their vehicle fleets. We understand the challenges that your company faces in knowing where vehicles are at all times, avoiding expensive break-downs and keeping overall operating costs down and Vendor.
As a fleet manager, you can now put the power of GPS geofencing to work for your business. Draw a circle or a polygon around any area you choose, or select advanced route geofencing with fully adjustable buffer zones and get instant alerts if your drivers deviate from their scheduled routes. You can add watchers or admin users, set business rules and control administration access and permissions from anywhere in the globe with an Internet connection.
GPS (Global Positioning System) fleet tracking means different things to different businesses – instant connection, real-time views of vehicle positions, full access to all drivers and assets at a moment’s notice. What does GPS fleet tracking need to mean for your business? Whether it’s stronger vehicle tracking, improved savings or better travel times, the right GPS fleet tracking software can produce dramatic results for a fleet.
It’s no secret that some of your drivers are more productive than others. You now can hold everyone in your fleet to the same productivity standards and increase every field employee’s value with easy-to-understand driver performance reports.
With GPS monitoring systems, you can track your fleet in real time – and locate any vehicle instantly from anywhere in the world. You can monitor a single vehicle or an entire fleet, and track your inventory as it moves through your supply chain. Monitoring GPS data can be accessed from anywhere you are in real time with speed, location and after-hours alerts delivered instantly via text or email. Most of the GPS tracking platform are fully mobile-ready, so you can get the answers you need in seconds from any Web-enabled device.
Healthy cars and trucks stay on the road longer. When you track your fleet maintenance information, including kilometers driven, in one centralized system, you know for sure that all your vehicles are being properly maintained and performing at maximum efficiency.
In addition to an industry-leading slate of standard reports, such systems will custom-create the reports you need to maximize your fleet’s productivity. Drill down and monitor frequency of visit, closest item search, driver productivity, scheduled maintenance and more. Businesses that rely on fleet trucks to provide products and services to their clients can experience tangible financial benefits with GPS tracking. GPS fleet tracking essentially puts you in the passenger seat of every truck in your fleet. By utilizing GPS tracking, you can gain complete control over your fleet, significantly reduce costs and improve productivity.
Almost everything monitored by GPS tracking systems can work to help reduce fuel costs. Speeding is a huge factor in high fuel usage. Maintaining proper speeds can significantly reduce the amount of fuel used by your trucks. Many tracking solutions provide speed information and alert you when the vehicle exceeds set speed thresholds.
Truck tracking also provides location-based information dispatchers can use to provide proper routing information to trucks in the field. In addition, many systems have the ability to locate the vehicle closest to any specific job site. You can dispatch the truck that will arrive on the site first, thus further reducing fuel usage.
Other major contributors to high fleet costs are unauthorized vehicle use and improper driver behavior. Tracking can relay a variety of information regarding driving behavior including vehicle speed, engine start-up and shut-down and idling time. This information can be used to enforce driving policy and curb unwanted behavior like excessive speeding, tardiness and extended vehicle idling. Studies show that tracking your vehicles encourages employees to work more effectively and stop utilizing company vehicles for personal use.
Quality vehicle tracking solutions can also provide the ability to automate timesheets. You will know exactly when employees start work, how long they take for lunches and breaks, and when they stop working for the day, without relying on manual timesheets. Accurate, verifiable timesheets will streamline payroll processes and help you avoid paying excessive overtime pay due to timesheet falsification or unintentional errors.
Vehicle GPS tracking will also help improve the security of your fleet. In the event a vehicle is stolen, a hidden GPS receiver can help you recover a truck and any onboard equipment quickly. In addition, some systems offer features that alert owners immediately if a truck is used during off-hours. Some GPS tracking providers feature alerting functions to let you know when trucks are due for routine maintenance. Proper maintenance ensures that your vehicles are compliant with safety guidelines and can help reduce repair costs in the long run.
With proper mapping software, fleet owners know the exact location of every fleet truck. This gives dispatchers the ability to effectively direct drivers to any job site. In addition, you can locate and dispatch the closest truck to any job site. GPS tracking provides better routing and dispatching. This reduces fuel usage, reduces truck mileage and increases the number of jobs completed in a day.
GPS tracking solutions can incorporate a number of features that help improve customer service. Better routing and dispatching helps you get to your customers more quickly. You will also be able to determine when a truck arrived on a job and when it left, providing accurate and verifiable proof of services.
Most of the tracking provides active truck tracking. Active truck tracking means that the data from the GPS receiver is transmitted to a remote user at regular intervals. The best systems transmit data every 60 seconds. This gives you real-time location information. For passive truck tracking, all the GPS data is stored in the receiver and must be downloaded once all the trucks return to the office. Real-time (active) tracking has become the most popular method for tracking trucks despite its higher cost because of the huge benefits to having real-time information to make on-demand management decisions.
Many GPS solutions utilize proprietary software that requires installation on your computer. Often, these solutions, also require frequent manual upgrades and downloads. Another drawback to proprietary software is that the GPS solution can only be used on computers with the proper installation.
GPS Monitoring systems have extensive historical reporting functions. You can access any GPS information gathered by your system from the time you started using it. Using data mining techniques, you can compare the performance between two employees, or compare an employee’s performance against the company average in areas such as speeding, idling, miles driven and engine-on or off times.
Let your drivers know that tracking provides an important safety function for your business and the drivers as well. GPS allows you to keep up with proper truck maintenance, keeping trucks safe on the road. In addition, GPS tracking will allow you to recover any stolen trucks more quickly, which will help keep your business from incurring losses.
Truck tracking is also an essential customer service tool that can lead to happier clients and additional business. The system can also protect drivers against false complaints about overcharges and services not rendered.
Being able to measure the performance of the fleet is critical. If you cannot measure it, you cannot control it. If you cannot control it, you cannot improve it. Having GPS fleet tracking system and the ability to see each vehicle and driver behave is quite a need in the current business environment.
