Features Available with Vehicle Tracking

Are you familiar with vehicle tracking?  You might know what it is and maybe how it works, but have you delved into the key features of vehicle tracking yet?  There are many things you will need to understand about vehicle tracking before you purchase the system.  You want to know that you have the right system and that the benefits you gain will work for you.  You also want to make sure the features offered will fit within your needs.

One of the top features of vehicle tracking is the live mapping option.  Live mapping plots out real time locations of your vehicles.  The information is shared either on road or satellite maps depending on what you want.  The tracking system will even allow the user to zoom down to the street level to view the vehicle as a tiny dot.  You can also zoom out on the map to view the entire fleet that is on the road at the moment.  The live mapping solutions will usually refresh on the screen every time an asset sends an update as to where they are located.  The date and time will provide you accurate information.  Not all tracking systems have live mapping, which means you can seek a lower cost system that does not have this feature.

Reports are definitely a part of the tracking system.  You can find out daily activity, daily visits, driver performance, and vehicle idling information with the reports.  The reports will help you determine where your fleet can be saving money.  It also gives you an accurate look at what the drivers are actually doing while on the road.  There are other reports not listed that are part of tracking systems, though the additional reports may vary from system to system.

Most vehicle tracking devices will offer live alerts.  Live alerts will tell you when a vehicle is off plan or something is wrong.  The reports are sent to email, SMS, or in application messages can be sent.  You may set up the system to send all three all the time.  You will be notified immediately if something is wrong with information about the employee, customer address, or roads the vehicle might be on. For example you can get an alert when the driver arrives at the customer residence.  You can also get alerts when the driver returns to the depot.

Information in the real time alerts include location based, late/ early, idling, and driver activated alerts.  The driver has an SOS button in the vehicle to hit if they are in an accident, emergency, or troubling situation.  It lets you know to send the police to assist.  Other alerts include theft alerts.  For example vehicle tracking can send an alert based on truck schedule.  If a truck is not scheduled to be moved for a specific day an alert will be sent out if the engine is started.  The system will then begin tracking what route the vehicle takes in order to help police capture the stolen vehicle.