Vehicle Tracking
There are many reasons to invest in a vehicle tracking system. Whether your vehicle is privately owned, or you are a fleet owner or dispatcher, a GPS vehicle tracking system offers both an easy to install and reasonable priced way to increase the efficiency of your vehicle. Vehicle tracking helps you to monitor and improve the way that your budget is spent, as well as acting as a very effective method of vehicle security.
Some of the benefits of purchasing GPS vehicle tracking are:
- If you are a fleet manager, or have field workers in your company, tracking vehicles allows you to follow employees movements, checking where they are stopping and for how long. By doing so, you can check the hours employees have worked, and also that they are using the vehicle for company work only. The advantage of this is that you can be protected from paying for hours or fuel that is not for benefit of the company. In addition, with fleet vehicle tracking, all of your fleet can be seen on screen at the same time.
- For field workers, protection and panic facilities can be installed if they are working alone or in dangerous areas.
- As a driver, GPS can be used to find destinations, give driving directions, and communicate traffic information. By driving a more direct route, you can reduce journey time and fuel costs.
- With field service management, fleet tracking means that you can monitor the location of vehicles and then use this information to schedule work for field workers. Furthermore, through the data received from this can help you evaluate the productivity of your business and workers.
- Knowing the exact location of a field worker will help you relate more accurate expected arrival times for worker, adding to customer satisfaction.
- Vehicle tracking can add greatly to the security of your vehicle, and if it is stolen, a car tracking device can help the police track and recover the vehicle. Also, if the vehicle contains contents that need to be monitored for insurance or other reasons, a tracking device allows you to dispatch it safe in the knowledge that the item is being tracked. This is often practised with haulage or logistics companies where the trailer of the lorry is detachable.
- Another utilisation of vehicle tracking systems is by individuals on parole. Their whereabouts can be traced through GPS to prove that they are not breaking the agreement the terms of their release.
Tracking Options
There are two types of car tracking devices that can be installed: real time or passive tracking.
Real time vehicle tracking allows you to know the exact whereabouts of a vehicle, at the exact time it is there. With this type of tracker there are options of the quantity and frequency of data transmitted, including positional and speed information. You can also programme alerts, such as ‘vehicle moved’ or ‘vehicle entered zone’. A real time tracker can store unlimited data for a certain amount of time.
The other option available is passive trackers. These provide a specific data of a vehicle’s movements, and are the suitable if you want a summary of information, such as for timesheets, private mileage or customer invoices. When the vehicle returns to a given location the data from the tracker is downloaded to a computer, or is automatically transferred via wireless. This type of vehicle tracker can store a certain amount of data that does not expire
There are also options as to how you receive the data from tracking devices. Information can be communicated through a mobile or satellite to a remote user. This information can then be accessed from a PC, laptop or PDA. Depending on the provider, you can then access the information through the internet or specialised vehicle tracking software, and vehicle locations can be viewed using a satellite photographs or electronic maps. There are also choices for the ranges of car tracking networks.
Costs
Costs vary depending upon the type of vehicle tracking device that you choose and the service that is provided with it, although as a general rule of thumb real time trackers will cost more than passive trackers. The cost of installation is similar for both types of vehicle tracking devices, but the cost for passive trackers will mainly be focused in the first year of purchase. With real time trackers you can opt for a monthly fee service, or alternatively there is also the choice of paying a fixed fee per day per vehicle.
In terms of software, you can download free software from the internet, or you can pay for customised options that will be more appropriate to your company. If you subscribe to a monthly service, you can expect to have your software updated automatically by the provider. This includes the mapping software and traffic updates.
