GPS Fleet Tracking Systems and Solutions
Friday, February 15th, 2008GPS technology is useful for sending work and routing information to employees.
There are two types of GPS fleet tracking systems, active or real time, and passive. This article looks at some well-known and reliable brands for both systems.
Active / Real time GPS fleet tracking systems
Real time GPS fleet systems are necessary if you need to be able to re-route drivers immediately. This is critical in certain industries such as medical supplies distribution.
Utilizing the satellite network for this purpose means you incur an additional monthly charge. You'd need to assess if it makes business sense to pay the monthly charge. Your company benefits if for instance, vehicle routing improves allowing drivers to make additional stops each week.
Navtrak is a recognized brand in the active GPS space.
Getting your money's worth means that it's best to go with fleet GPS tracking platforms that can be customized to suit your business needs. Karta has such a system - take a look at their FleetRADAR GPS fleet management solution.
If you face resistance from the fleet drivers, you could inform them that the installation of real-time GPS units on vehicles entitles your business to earn a discount from the insurance company.
Further information can be obtained from the following resources:
Passive GPS fleet tracking systems
Passive systems are cheaper than active ones for a reason - you can only monitor employees and analyze routing after the fact. Information is downloaded from a key fob or via a 900 MHz wireless setup.
You only pay a one-time fee; there's no additional monthly charge.
Other alternatives
Consider issuing cell phones with built-in GPS locators to employees. The employees need not know about the built-in GPS capability, and this solution is much cheaper to dedicated GPS systems.Two examples of companies that provide this service are Verizon and Sprint Nextel.