The most common and effective method of vehicle fleet tracking is via the use of gps software.
While it may seem invasive on the surface, companies of all sizes and forms should be able to accurately track the movements of all their employees – whether it be in the office or out on the road in a fleet vehicle.
It can be extremely difficult to track workers when they are not under your direct supervision, and without a concrete way of providing evidence to the contrary, you are going to be burdened with the same old excuses for lost time like perhaps the truck broke down or heavy traffic was to blame for tardiness.
While the initial cost of a gps vehicle tracking system might seem prohibitively expensive, they have been to known to increase productivity by as much as 20% by making the workers in your business more accountable.
Advantages of the software
Obviously with the thought of any large parting of cash, you are going to want to know the advantages you will inherit as a result of buying the software.
It makes sense that you should be able to monitor each and every vehicle in your company. Just because they are workstations-on-the-go doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be observed accordingly. They are an extension of your business and brand and employee behavior is always on display to the general public as drivers and general civilians.
Effective vehicle tracking will have the following benefits:
- Cut down on employees using your gas for their personal needs
- The ability to manage a streamlined, efficient payroll where you will know exactly when an employee starts and stops work and whether or not they are abusing their lunch breaks by going over time.
- Accurately track the position of each and every vehicle in your fleet and use this information to find faster, more cost efficient ways of meeting your targets and thereby improving customer relations.
- Monitor vehicle mileage and plan servicing ahead of time to keep them in service longer and for more of the time.
GPS tracking fleet management options
Before you dive into purchasing one system or another, you must know that there are a few different types of software available, all with a specific purpose.
There are two distinct types of tracking – passive and active. Passive surveillance involves the truck or van driver entering information into an on-board computer and then simply exporting that data to a central database back in the office.
Obviously you would only this use option if you had absolute trust in your drivers, but the upside is that these type of frameworks are cheaper since there is no real time monitoring involved.
Active surveillance is a more hands-on solution and it is best suited to large companies who have a lot of movement in their business on any given day.
If you don’t want to be burdened with the cost of hiring extra drivers then it would make sense to buy some sort of active vehicle fleet tracking because you can actually save money by streamlining routes which has the flow-on effect of enhancing your productivity as a whole.
It is true that active systems are more costly initially, but this cost can easily be made up providing that the software is used correctly in the first place to streamline operations.