GPS Fleet Tracking Solutions

One of the main problems with modern economics is, of course, management. It can be difficult to manage the portions of a business that have a lot of individual components - a hotel chain, for example, or a line of busses. That difficulty also applies to companies like taxi or limousine fleets, which is why good businessmen should consider buying technological tools to aid them in that task and to help them get the most money and profit out of their rather significant investments.

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What is Fleet Tracking?
First, let’s talk about a specific section of the American economic scene – the transportation industry. More specifically, we’ll talk about the personal transportation industry. It’s not easy getting around these days, and becoming harder all the time. It’s for this reason that so many enterprising businessmen and women have caught onto the idea that people will pay good money to ferry passengers from one place to another. That, in a nutshell, is the goal of the modern taxi industry.

Now, there are a fair number of taxis out there. In some places, like New York City, they all operate under a single head – the famous Medallion or “yellow cabs” of the city. Sometimes, taxis are owned by individual drivers, and make money by picking up street fares. More common, though, especially in smaller communities, are the phone summon taxis that are run by taxi companies. The person needing a ride calls the taxi company, and the company dispatches a taxi to pick them up. These types of taxis – known as FHVs or For Hire Vehicles in the industry – are generally run under a single company manager and require a lot of management to be efficient.

That’s where fleet or vehicle tracking comes in. GPS fleet tracking solutions are available on the consumer marketplace for discerning businessmen and businesswomen to use for their own taxi fleets in order to determine what’s happening in their company and what happens where – important when it comes to doling out paychecks or dealing with insurance problems, things like broken down taxis or auto accidents may cause.

Why Use GPS Fleet Tracking Solutions?
The first step in good management is knowing exactly what’s happening, how long it takes, how long it costs, and where it takes place. That’s especially difficult in a taxi fleet, as all those reports depend on individual drivers – whose personal interests may be at odds with your own. If you have a driver prone to laziness, for example, he or she may report more hours on their payroll than they are actually filling, thus depriving his or her fellow employees as well as the company as a whole of valuable profits. This can also give the company a bad name, which, again, hurts fellow employees as well as you or anyone else in upper management.

So what do GPS fleet tracking solutions do? Simple. They record and observe in an unobtrusive way. They mark times, fares, stops, fuel expenses, and even, if you choose, things like speed. Are you concerned that some of your employees may be using your vehicles to break traffic laws? GPS fleet tracking solutions let you keep an eye on locations and speed limits, letting you know how fast they’re going at all times. GPS systems can also help the driver, helping him or her get to where they need to be faster and more efficiently than simply relying on street maps and personal memory.

Different Types of Vehicle Tracking
There are two main varieties when it comes to good fleet management software. These depend specifically on the type of information you need and the type of technology you want to include in your vehicles. This can also make a big difference in cost, so make sure you research your options extensively before settling on one or the other. Ask yourself if the extra features of any specific system are really worth the extra cost you’ll be paying for them.

In fact, educating yourself about the details of these systems is probably a good idea. Good GPS fleet tracking solutions or fleet maintenance software can cost a lot of money, and it shouldn’t be a bill lightly looked at. With luck, these systems will last a long time and be used for a lot of solutions, so you should treat them with utter seriousness when it comes time to buy – make sure you educate yourself about all your options and know beforehand what you want, and you’ll end up with the best possible solution for your money in the end.

Real Time Vehicle Tracking
The first main type of vehicle tracking used by fleet management software and fleet maintenance software is called “real time vehicle tracking.” This means exactly what it says – the fleet management software tracks the vehicles in real time, through a web interface or forwarding server, so you can use the power of the Internet to monitor your entire fleet in real time. This can be useful if you need that kind of information to be constantly updated – which, of course, some taxi companies do. This also makes communication and repair easier, as you can see at any time exactly where one of your cabs is and where to reach them. Of course, some drivers may see this sort of measure as overly intrusive, but it is your company – you are fully within your rights to survey your own property with this kind of technology.

This is also useful when you need to track your fleet from multiple locations, as when you operate a long distance transportation service where cars may be in multiple states at any given time. It could be useful, for instance, for a rental fleet – real time fleet tracking in a case like that could well prevent theft and petty crime, as well as letting you keep an eye on your property while it’s out in the field. Real time vehicle tracking is also useful for a vehicle fleet that uses the services of a dispatcher or something similar. Suppose you run a taxi fleet that works on a by call basis, but you focus on speedy pickups. If you have a real time GPS fleet tracking solution, you can check your map instantly upon getting a call and see where your nearest taxi is and dispatch them at once. Quick response times and efficient management are the keys to saving money, as well as making your customers happy with you.

Historical GPS Fleet Tracking Solutions
The other alternative to the real time GPS fleet tracking solutions is the historical vehicle tracking system. Fleet management software or fleet maintenance software in this case doesn’t operate in real time as in the previous example, but by reading data from a data storage device on the vehicle itself. These data can then be fed into a mainframe or the fleet management software and then analyzed to provide you the sort of information you need. Because historical vehicle tracking solutions don’t require a constant Internet link, they are often much cheaper than the real time tracking solutions, so that’s a good thing to consider when you’re looking for a good GPS fleet tracking solution for your fleet.

Historical vehicle tracking works like this. The taxi goes out, picks up fares, stops for gas, and all the other things that generally happen on a taxi run. While all this is happening, the GPS unit inside the car is recording locations, speeds, stop times, fare lengths, and all the other information you need to know to effectively manage your fleet. When the taxi returns to the taxi headquarters, the data can be removed – usually by wireless or a transfer mechanism like a thumb drive – and fed into the main fleet management software. The software puts it all together and you’re ready to go – just review the data and make any changes you see fit. Management is easier already.

The Best of Both Worlds
One of the downsides to real time fleet tracking is that it’s not cheap. As we said, it often costs more than the standard fleet tracking system to set up, but that’s not all. Good real time tracking almost always requires a monthly fee for the constant Internet hookup inside the taxi. So what do you do?

Some systems actually mix the two. We talked earlier about how fleet tracking solutions that may require tracking over large areas – possibly even multiple states – can often require real time tracking to be truly effective. Hybrid systems attempt to mix the two systems by using data entry historical systems at various points owned by the company – fleet headquarters, if you will, around the city or even around the country – and then combine that data using the power of the Internet to be easily reviewed from anywhere you happen to be. Say you run a rental company with multiple locations around the state of Nevada. You install a historical fleet tracking system on your fleet, with a real time fleet tracking solution to keep track of it all with some good fleet maintenance software. Someone rents a car and drives it from your location in Las Vegas to your location in Reno. The historical recorder inside the car offloads its information in Reno, and the real time system takes it from there. Therefore you instantly have access to it instantly from your desk back in Las Vegas. It’s really as simple as that, and offers an elegant solution to the cost problems of good real time fleet tracking.

Fleet Tracking for Wages
One of the most useful applications for fleet tracking solutions is to determine exactly how much your employees need to be paid. Assuming you’re running a taxi service, you’ll probably be paying them a base fee on top of whatever they earn in tips, and a good fleet tracking system can help you do that. It records times exactly, and will be able to tell you if the employee is spending too much time just sitting around or perhaps even taking deliberately long routes in order to increase the fare. That kind of tracking ability encourages honesty across the board and makes sure you can pay your employees well and fairly according to how much they work and how far they drive. For that reason alone, it’s very helpful to have good fleet management software and good GPS fleet tracking solutions for your fleet of whatever sort of vehicles you happen to prefer to field.

Fleet Tracking for Insurance
Another side benefit of good fleet tracking systems is their benefit to your insurance rates. Paying insurance on a lot of vehicles – which you have, if your taxi company is very large – can be a pain sometimes, and even the smallest decrease in insurance rates can make a big difference in terms of the overall budget. Good fleet tracking usually means safer driving, if only because you can watch your employees and make sure they’re not breaking the law – and safer driving means lower insurance rates. If you’d like to save some money that could so easily be spent better somewhere else, it might be a good idea to invest in a good GPS fleet tracking solution.

In Conclusion
No matter what you think you really need, the best way to ensure that you get the best deal for your money is to do your research and know what you’re looking for before you even start looking. Education is the key to a great economy, and that applies to nothing better than personal finance – the more you know, the more you’ll be able to compare, and the more you can compare, the more you’ll be able to save. Competition means it’s possible for you to get the best deal for your money, and probably for a reasonable rate. So know the market and learn the technology, and it should be no time at all before you’re ready to shell out the cash and update your fleet with the kind of cutting edge technology it needs.


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