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New-generation vehicle tracking

The modern fleet management system has evolved over a number of years from the simple mechanical tachographs of yesteryear, through many modifications to the sophisticated fleet management systems we see today.

We reminisce about the time it took to monitor the early ‘tacho’, manually analyse the data collected, the struggle at times to interpret the data and the eventual belief that there was indeed something going on out there that we were not happy about. We just were not quite sure what it was.

Unfortunately for most it remained frustratingly out of sight. The data provided by tachographs was vehicle specific and required substantial manual work to be carried out to begin to get to grips with the information at hand. This proved, especially in larger fleets, to be somewhat of a barrier.

Market forces were at work and entrepreneurs saw the possibility of offering something better. If one was able to take what a typical tachograph offered and store it on an on-board computer all the data would be in electronic form that would make analysis easier for the fleet manager. This resulted in the development of the on-board-computer used in the modern fleet management systems of today.

Now the ‘techno-savvy’ fleet manager could view the vehicle’s trips for a given period and analyse the trip for management purposes. This was lauded as the latest and greatest move forward in fleet management. And it was just that, an amazing step forward, we were now in a position to see what goes on out there, or were we?

More developments quickly followed and the industry moved forward at an alarming rate, entering what was seen to be the ultimate; live vehicle tracking. This new technology, using the ubiquitous SMS to transfer data from the vehicle back to the end-user would surely end that recurring problem: “What goes on out there when my vehicles are out-of-sight?”

“Unfortunately SMS-based systems are no longer seen to be effective. Quite simply put, they are too expensive. The upshot of this invariably leads to end-users cutting back on polling frequency to save money. This results in a ‘live’ system with gaps between polling of 30 to 240 minutes, depending on the user’s budget,” says Stewart Somerville, managing director of Geotab SA, a Midrand-based fleet management solution provider.

“The beauty of GPRS is that you are continuously connected (24 hours per day if required) and you only pay for the amount of data transmitted, not the time spent connected to your vehicles. At Geotab we offer a low, fixed monthly cost, removing the uncertainty from the equation. This is why GPRS is fast becoming the international standard for data transfer in mobile telematics,” enthuses Somerville.

“Fleet management has now entered the era of immediacy. We are now able to offer true live data transfer, positioned on interactive GIS (geographic information system) maps. A vehicle can now be watched live; as soon as the ignition is switched on the vehicle is monitored, continuously. GPRS has opened up a whole range of possibilities.”

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