If you are currently in the market to implement GPS tracking to your fleet operations, then you already know how many different solutions are out there. It can be hard to decide which solution to go with and what capabilities are most important. If you are currently evaluating advanced GPS tracking solutions and thinking of starting free trials with a few, make sure that potential partners are adept to these top 7 capabilities.
(1) Easily Configurable Interface
An advanced GPS tracking solution should have an intuitive and easily configurable dashboard interface. This means that you should be able to gather actionable data for your fleet operations at a glance. Every fleet is different and one size doesn’t fit all, so make sure that a potential solution can be customized to your specific needs.
(2) Full Featured 3D Mapping
Make sure the potential solutions you evaluate support a 3D mapping system to view vehicle locations and history, and to visualize report data. Many reports can be exported into 3D mapping for a more visual analysis of your fleet’s speeding, odd-hours, usage, idling, and more.
(3) Precise Landmark Creation
Landmarks give meaning to alerts, reports, and mapping. Say you need to verify a job or you are interested in an address that keeps appearing on a report. Isn’t it easier to understand that your driver stopped at “the local burger joint,” rather than a street address that has no meaning? You should be able to create landmarks with precision for any address that has meaning to your fleet.
(4) Configurable Alerts
Advanced alerts help to proactively tackle big challenges for your fleet like speeding, excessive idle time, odd-hours usage, and more. Customized alerts can be sent to management as well as drivers to stop the behavior while it is happening.
(5) Fuel Card Integration
Integrating fuel cards with a GPS tracking solution will allow you to generate reports for fuel card transactions and fuel card usage. This is beneficial to help identify fuel card fraud and to summarize fuel usage and consumption. Fuel card integration should be free of charge and is incredibly valuable functionality.
(6) Scheduled Maintenance Reminders
Setting up scheduled maintenance reminders for each vehicle will help to extend the lifespan of your fleet. These alerts will let management and/or the drivers know when maintenance is coming up or is overdue.
(7) Unlimited Historical Data
Choose a GPS tracking solution that will retrieve data as far back as you need for your fleet. Very few providers supply unlimited historical data. Many provide up to a year’s worth of historical data at no additional cost, but charge for anything further back and some purge the data after a certain amount of time. Understand that this data should be retrievable at no cost and be accessed as far back as your vehicles were equipped with tracking devices. This could potentially protect your business against false claims or even a lawsuit.
To find out what other capabilities an advanced GPS tracking solution should have, contact us today!
