Vehiclepath

For GPS tracking to work, you need access to the Global Positioning System and a GPS receiver. The GPS receiver receives signals that are transmitted by more than two dozen GPS satellites that orbit earth. Once these satellite transmissions are received-location, speed, direction and other information can be calculated.A GPS receiver must receive transmissions from three or more GPS satellites to calculate its position effectively. GPS receivers usually measure time delays between transmission and reception of each of the satellites GPS radio signal. This technique of calculating distance using three separate transmissions is called trilateration.

GPS tracking is a term used to determine the location of a person, vehicle or any other asset using the Global Positioning System. Usually, “locates” are recorded at regular intervals.

Recording information from the tracked unit takes place within the GPS receiver unit, or it can be transmitted to a central location such as a database. The information can be accessed either via mobile phone technology or over the Internet. GPS tracking units can use cellular GPRS, satellite modem technology or radio waves to transmit information to a central location where the data is logged and recorded.

Most GPS tracking systems can be viewed in real time and have a map in the background to easily display the current location of an object.

Overall, the process is pretty simple. Satellite to device to your personal computer or PDA; GPS brings you a plethora of pinpoint accurate information in seconds.

Customers react well to companies that listen. These days, unless greatly dissatisfied with a product or service, most people won’t bother to take the time to contact a company. They don’t want to waste time and energy writing a letter/email or making a phone call only to reach deaf ears.

Proactive companies that are constantly striving to feel the pulse of their customers crave feedback. It makes good business sense-improved customer service and/or products will probably lead to increased sales. It’s win-win: happy customer, more profitable (happy) business.

Vehiclepath’s current “features” list has benefited from customer feedback because Vehiclepath management and designers decided to satisfy their customers’ needs. Of course, the company first asked “Will these features benefit the majority of our customers?”

The answer was “yes” for two features our customers requested: tracking via mobile device and Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR).

Tracking via mobile device lets users track their vehicle through, you guessed it, their PDA. Enabling this feature makes it very easy to see if a driver has finished a job-right from a mobile device.

IVR gives customers the option to call a toll-free 800 number and discover:

• Current location of vehicle
• Days last movement of vehicle
• First location of the day
• Previous days last location
• Previous days first location

Vehiclepath would still be a very useful and effective device without these two “customer-suggested” features, but their addition only adds to its value and functionality. In the end, happier customers and more profitable business because business decided to listen.

GPS tracking devices have changed the functionality and flexibility of businesses that deploy fleets. Business owners now have access to information and communication capabilities that help streamline their operations.

Just consider the difference between what you couldn’t do before, what you can now, and what those differences mean to your company.

Five significant changes GPS fleet tracking has brought to business the past 10 years:

1. Turn-by-turn directions with GPS navigation units

This is huge. The ability for a driver to locate an address anywhere on earth in seconds-makes a Thomas Guide look like carving in stone.

2. Tracking employees speed

Save gas, money and avoid accidents/the possibility of litigation. One Vehiclepath customer saved $4000 worth of fuel over two months.

3. Delivery times and routes

Mapping lets you find the most direct routes for your fleet and records when deliveries were made. Ensure efficiency and deal with customer complaints with hard facts at your disposal.

4. Know where everything is 24/7

How valuable is that? If you have 10 delivery trucks valued at $30,000 each, wouldn’t it be good to know if one is stolen and you can recover in minutes?

5. Driver monitoring ensures staff honesty and productivity

An added five hours of overtime or extended lunch breaks each week adds up to thousands off your bottom line each year. Hopefully, most of your workers are good, honest people. This keeps the bad apples from taking advantage of you.

Just 10 years ago, the advantages listed above weren’t available to business owners. Now, they’re adding thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars to their bottom lines.

Business owners who decide to use GPS tracking units on their fleets want to get the most for their money. The best way to assure GPS tracking will produce a return on investment (ROI) is to do a test run. Understandably, companies with hundreds of trucks, or even small businesses with under 10, want to know what they’re getting before committing to a large investment.

An example of a test run is detailed below:

Tom runs a business in Southern California. He has 200 drivers in his fleet and he thinks most of his drivers are driving safely and being productive the eight hours they are on the clock. He has heard of companies using GPS to track their drivers, but doesn’t want to outfit all 200 vehicles right off the bat.

Tom decides to do a split test and install 10 units on vehicles and inform the drivers they are testing out a vehicle tracking system. In parallel, he also installs 10 GPS tracking units covertly on vehicles-which allows him to really see what his drivers are doing when they are unaware they are being monitored.

Tom sets speed alerts on all 20 vehicles so he is notified when a driver exceeds 65MPH. After a two week test it becomes clear that the drivers who knew they were being monitored drove at much lower speeds and were more productive in their work.

The average speed of the drivers who were aware of the GPS tracking was 67MPH. The average speed of those who were monitored covertly was 76MPH, and two of his drivers exceeded 90MPH on a regular basis. One other troubling trend was drivers that were being covertly monitored would spend more time during lunch and would run errands during the day when they should have been visiting customers. He believes he lost an average of 90 minutes per day of productivity due to this.

What do you think you’d discover in a “test run” of your company’s fleet?

The benefits of GPS continue to grow as people create new ways to use the technology. GPS units are being used in phones, computers, cars and many other places to make our lives easier. And the best part of GPS technology is the ease of use for both dealers and consumers.

GPS signals come from a satellite so, unlike finding a radio frequency (as used in LoJack), tracking is possible anywhere in the world.

GPS tracking units use the Global Positioning System to determine the precise location of a vehicle, person, or other object it’s attached to. The position is recorded at regular intervals-Vehiclepath units can be tracked every one, two or five minutes. Vehiclepath GPS systems record not only position, but vehicle speed, direction, longitude/latitude, exact address, etc.

One of the most well-known and popular ways to use GPS tracking is to help people recover stolen cars. Vehiclepath customers can have a dealership monitor their car or personally view details about their vehicle online or via cell phone. We’ve heard countless testimonials from people raving about how they were able to locate their stolen car and recover it with police assistance by the end of the day.

There are many other uses for a GPS tracker, including:

• Fleet tracking
• Asset tracking
• Teen driver tracking

Vehiclepath GPS software is fully compatible with Google Earth Software and maps the GPS coordinates of the person or vehicle accurately. Fleet owners can see all of their vehicles on one map.

Vehicle monitoring systems like LoJack operate on a radio frequency signal. While radio waves can go some places GPS signals cannot (buildings, parking garages), GPS devices can track objects anywhere in the world and work where radio frequencies go awry.

Do you think a huge automotive company like GM would invest millions and choose GPS technology (OnStar) if it wasn’t the better option for them and their consumers?