Guide to buying Fleet GPS Systems
Not all GPS Fleet Management Systems are created equal – some require lots of man hours to simply operate, while others just do not cut the bill offering minimal or sub par features. It takes a lot more than a low refresh rate on a clunky system to give me piece of mind.
Web Based
The first and foremost obvious must is a web based GPS Fleet Management Solution – one you can log into anywhere at anytime and literally track your fleet. What happens when you go on vacation or go home on the holidays, are you going to trust someone else to watch over your valuables? I know I wouldn’t!
Fuel Usage
Vehicle diagnostic web-based systems offer you the ability to track real-time information about your vehicles including highly-detailed information about fuel consumption, fuel purchases, fuel levels and fuel efficiency. It enables you to track the fuel consumption of each individual vehicle and compare that data against the expected or average efficiency for that make and model. Yes, I know fuel prices are dropping and may continue to, but let’s face it we all have to cut costs these days and maximize the money we do spend. Tracking fuel spending by logging into your system give you the single source for information about the company’s current and past fuel purchase history – a key piece of data for fuel management programs.
Routing
Optimizing your routes to decrease wasted fuel and man hours are key to increasing the efficiency of your fleet, while being able to map out your driver’s schedules for them before they leave the yard ensures your productivity levels. Truck restrictions are factored in as well so your drivers avoid those nasty ‘truck bridge’ collisions (which, in 99% of cases, the bridge wins). Built-in traffic avoidance also means your drivers are getting to their destinations quicker and with less stress.
Navigation
Equipping your drivers with accurate driving directions is an absolute key to getting your goods or services to their destinations on time. Effortlessly provide them with turn by turn directions and navigation provide direct route access to your locations, so they can never use the, “I’m lost,” excuse again.
Rules and Alerts
Web based GPS fleet Management Systems can be programmed to alert you when someone deters from their schedule, map or even when they are using the vehicle off hours. The most intuitive approach is the managed by exception alerts – only when a driver is outside of your specified parameters will you be notified. You can even set up a set of rules that tell you when any of your drivers exceed the speed limit, idle too long, or drive outside of their region.
All in all, just simply considering a purchase of a fleet management system is good for your business; it proves you are anticipating continued success through trying times. The economic climate is the exact time to line up a system that increases efficiency and productivity and conserves capital.
A Leading Solution?
Telogis Fleet Management Software provides fleet owners with a significant reduction of costs with most companies reporting a positive ROI within just 90 days.
A customer of Telogis, Namasco Corp, was recently featured in an article in the Integrated Solutions Magazine -
In addition to the hundreds of thousands Namasco is saving in fuel costs, both the OnTrack (now Telogis Fleet) fleet management solution and the Workforce (now Telogis Mobile) automated logging solution have increased the safety of the company’s drivers. “Not only can we monitor driver activity, we can set top speed limits, monitor driver speed, and see if drivers are frequently hard breaking [‘stomping’ on the breaks],” says Stark. “Furthermore, we know that the drivers using the MC35 hand-held with the Workforce solution are complying with DOT logging regulations.”
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According to a recent study by Motorola, having vehicles equipped with a GPS solution decreases travel downtime by 53% and improves employee accountability by 26%. Indeed, these results ring true for Namasco, and Stark feels grateful to have made the decision to implement a fleet management solution when he did.
Visit www.telogis.com to find out more about solutions such as OnTrack, WorkForce and other developing software to give insight into your daily fleet operations today.
