printer friendly version

Global GPS tracking and IoT management platform

Another exhibitor at Securex this year was Gurtam, a company specialising in fleet operations and vehicle management. Gurtam employs over 300 people at its offices in Vilnius, Boston, Dubai and Buenos Aires. Wialon, a telematics and IoT platform, is the flagship product of the company and has over 3.3 million units it is currently tracking in over 150 countries. Wialon is available locally through a number of distributors.

Aliaksandr Kuushynau.

Hi-Tech Security Solutions spoke to Aliaksandr Kuushynau, head of Wialon about the company’s market offerings since South Africa already has a number of local and international fleet management systems and solutions available. To see the scope of the company’s global operations via its cloud-based services, go to https://gurtam.com/en/datacenter. One can also find its current partners at https://gurtam.com/en/dealers.

As an IoT platform, Wialon can track and manage just about anything. As such, when it comes to fleet management it offers the ‘usual’ services such as GPS tracking and operational functionality. However, it also specialises in video, with many mobile recorders and transmitters installed globally. In-vehicle cameras can be set up to handle a range of functions, from surveilling various aspects of the vehicle and can be linked to other IoT services, such as providing video feeds every time the cargo doors are opened, through to providing driver assistance as well as monitoring and scoring.

Naturally, the platform displays its findings on-screen in control rooms, but reports can also be sent to management at regular intervals, or in real time in exceptional circumstances.

BI functionality

The platform includes business intelligence functionality to allow operations managers to obtain an overview of their entire fleet’s performance, or they can drill down to manage each drive and/or vehicle. Additional functionality, such as cold chain monitoring across the supply chain, can also be handled by the service.

Wialon includes a range of video analytics solutions, including those enhanced by AI. For driver safety, for example, the analytics can detect and warn of driver’s sleeping, cell phone usage or unusual behaviours. It can even build a profile of the driver and detect if one is blinking in an unusual manner, which may indicate weariness or some form of stress.

In South Africa, Kuushynau says the service is also used to monitor objects that are meant to be stationary, such as generators or vehicles parked for the night, and raise the alarm if they suddenly start moving. Vehicles can also be geo-fenced, raising an alert if a vehicle leaves its operational area or takes a different route unexpectedly.

IoT functionality can include switching vehicles’ engines off in certain circumstances, or alerting companies if fuel levels dip below a specified level. Any functionality that can be measured by an IoT device can be incorporated and the data can become part of management operations.

A summary of the functionality available on Wialon includes:

• GPS tracking in real time.

• Fuel consumption control.

• Video monitoring.

• Tachograph data analysis.

• Tracker and CAN bus data analysis.

• Geofences for tracking units and events within a specific area.

• Driving behaviour control.

• Maintenance management.

• Prevention of the vehicle and fuel theft.

• Monitoring of cargo transportation conditions.

Channel focus

Kuushynau adds that the company operates via a local channel in order to ensure that regional customers get the service they require from people who understand the environment. While the platform is cloud based, customers still need someone who can install, configure and maintain devices, as well as integrate reports into corporate ERP systems if that is required.

The platform is already integrated into over 690 hardware brands and close on 3000 device models, which makes it simple for partners to offer the best hardware solutions on the market to customers to be monitored and controlled by Wialon.

As part of its white label offering, Gurtam allows partners to use the system under their own brand. And while the platform is cloud based and available globally, partners can also install the platform onsite, depending on their or their customers’ business models.

Find out more at https://gurtam.com/en/wialon

Share this article:

Further reading: