The Two Features You Must Have In Your Vehicle Fleet Tracking Solution That Will Save You Money |
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B. Hopkins
31 October 2008
Businesses such as repair services, delivery services and even vehicle rental companies depend upon the vehicles in their fleets to run their business. With the cost of fuel and raising insurance rates, running a fleet is a large portion of the expense of these businesses, so anything that they can do to cut back on the costs of keeping their fleets running will be a big benefit to them. One solution is to implement a system that keeps track of the individual vehicles in their fleets.
Vehicle Fleet Tracking is a Telematics application that allows fleet managers to keep track of their vehicles. Fleet tracking solutions are a combination of software, hardware and communication services. Each vehicle is outfitted with a piece of hardware that tracks information through a signal that is fed to it (typically from a GPS Satellite). This device can either communicate with the home base in real time, or store the information to be downloaded later when the vehicle is back at the home base. Both scenarios will give the fleet manager the same information that will allow the fleet manager to manage the vehicles in their fleets.
There are many Telematics service providers that come with different features with their services. For the fleet manager, they would want to know specific information that will allow them to cut back on costs such as fuel and insurance, some of the biggest expenses in operating a fleet. When a fleet manager is looking for a solution, they want to make sure that their solution has vehicle tracking and vehicle tracing.
Vehicle tracking is the process of knowing where you vehicle is at any moment. This feature is found in systems that have active tracking as opposed to having the tracking data downloaded after the fact when the vehicle is back at the base (called passive tracking). Vehicle tracking helps the fleet manager with planning deliveries and pickups, enhancing customer service and improves driver productivity. Drivers are able to get the shortest routs and avoid traffic back-ups.
Vehicle Tracing is the other feature that you need to have in your fleet tracking solution that will save you money. Vehicle tracing provides a record of where a vehicle has been and what it has been doing. This feature can be found in both active and passive tracking solutions. Some of the information that is tracked through vehicle tracing includes routes traveled, the number of stops and where, if the driver has been speeding and what route deviations the driver took. This helps the fleet manager determine if the driver has taken any unauthorized stops, and could help the driver if they have been accused of something that he or she didn't do.
Some of the other benefits of vehicle tracing is that it assists with route planning, saving excess mileage and money. This information can also build an average travel time log between locations thus giving more accurate estimated times. Vehicle tracing also provides records for use in future potential disputes with customers or drivers. Vehicle tracing also allows the fleet manager to manage driver behavior like making sure the drivers don't use the company vehicles for personal use.
Vehicle tracking and vehicle tracing are the fleet managers best friend when it comes to being able to save the company money on their fleet operations. These solutions are found in many of the telematics and GPS tracking service providers' product offerings. When looking for a vehicle fleet tracking solution, make sure your service provider is offering these features in their solutions.