Telogis Fleet's new animated vehicle history trails make visualizing the past a lot easier

Recreating the past isn’t easy. You only have to watch an episode of CSI to see how painstaking it can be trying to replay something that happened yesterday, last week or last year. Of course it might be easier if we all had perfect memories but the fact is we don’t, which can make it difficult to remember clearly exactly what we did even just a few hours ago. When it comes to reviewing your fleet’s activity, relying solely on the driver’s memory won’t give you the accurate picture you need to effectively manage your vehicles.

This is where vehicle history comes in handy, and Telogis have recently released a feature in their fleet management application, Telogis Fleet, that offers not only the ability to view any tracked vehicle’s history but also the option to replay it as an animated history trail.

This is a real breakthrough for the industry and highlights how fleet management programs are becoming more user-friendly and feature-rich. It’s so much easier to watch history than try to read the text-only version, or have to try and piece it together using still shots.

One of the smart things about this unique feature is that Telogis Fleet’s animated history trails actually route along mapped streets, rather than just connecting the dots using vehicle status updates. This provides a far more real-life view of the vehicle’s historical route, showing you the most likely route taken by the truck or van based on the status updates recorded.

Part of what’s made this possible is the advancement in the Silverlight technology that provides the framework for this web-based software. Silverlight offers web users a rich, interactive online experience, and provides software developers with the tools to build applications that easily rival desktop-based programs in terms of functionality.

There are several different options available when viewing the animated vehicle history trails that you can use to make it easier to focus on the information you need.

• Time frame – Choose from today, yesterday or both (last two days) vehicle’s recorded movements. Alternatively, you can select a specific date in the past that you have data for.
• Trail color – Change the color of the animated trail from the default blue. This is particularly useful when viewing the history of more than one vehicle.
• History layer – Easily toggle your view of the historical trails by switching it on and off using this option.
• Replay speed – If you want Telogis Fleet to walk you through the events for the time frame you have chosen then click the Play button. If there are not a lot of events (status updates) you can speed up the replay to 4 times the normal speed.
• Display options – Choose to display all events, only key events (e.g. moving violations or other predefined alerts) or just the vehicle trail.

Animated vehicle history trails are already making life easier for fleet owners using Telogis Fleet to accurately and easily review vehicle history to identify recurring patterns, problems or the background for an event under investigation. It’s just one more thing that is taking the headache out of managing large fleets for trucking companies and fleet owners around the world.