TrackCompare » Tracking News

RoadTrip by Vauxhall Scores Highly With The App Store

TrackCompare — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:09:23 +0000

Mileage claims and expense submission can be very time consuming, especially to employees that travel around a lot for work. However, the days where employees needed to write down their start and end mileage every time they made a work journey is over with the introduction of ‘RoadTrip’, designed by Vauxhall and currently available as a free smartphone application. A version of ‘RoadTrip’ will be launched for the popular Android phones in 2012.

Before the details of the journey you intend to take are added to the application you can choose the type of vehicle you are travelling in. There are, obviously, a wide range of vehicles from Vauxhall on the application but also a variety of vehicles from other manufacturers. ‘RoadTrip’ helps your employees to record their work journeys easily and efficiently, eliminating any potential for error.

The details from the application can be password protected, saved and converted into an Excel format ready to be emailed to the fleet manager. This saves the fleet manager’s time because they would no longer have to chase employees for their mileage claims and correct errors. Your employee will also have more time to be able to focus on their work activities, improving productivity.

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M5 Crash Sparks Debate Into Speed Limit Rise

TrackCompare — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:36:54 +0000

The catastrophic accident on the M5 in early November 2011 has resulted in calls for the government to rethink its plans to increase the motorway speed limit to 80 miles per hour. Seven people died in the accident, as many as 35 vehicles are thought to have been involved and 51 people were injured.

Campaigners in support of the speed limit rise are arguing that accidents on major roads such as motorways are statistically less likely to occur than on other roads. The charity Brake, although they acknowledge the statistic, counteracts the argument by saying that deaths are actually more likely to occur in motorway crashes because of the speeds the vehicles are travelling at, and obviously the higher the speed, the higher the chance of a fatality occurring.

Fleet operators and vehicle tracking suppliers alike are interested in the results of the investigation into the crash, as the situation seems to have complex factors involved in it such as driver behaviour, fog and smoke/distractions from a nearby firework display. It will be interesting from a speed limit point of view to see if the speed the drivers were travelling at is named as a causative factor. However, currently the main focus is the poor weather conditions and smoke. By studying investigations into terrible tragedies such as the M5 crash, vehicle tracking suppliers and fleet managers alike can work on ways to improve the safety of drivers.

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Galileo Satellite Launch Has Vehicle Manufacturers Excited

TrackCompare — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:32:48 +0000

Many people may not realise it but some of the satellites for Europe’s own version of GPS, Galileo, have been launched. By the end of 2012, four of the satellites used to run the system would have been launched. It will take an additional 3 years to complete the launch of all satellites involved in the global navigational system.

GPS is actually owned by the American military and the accuracy that is released to the public is a slightly downgraded version of what they use in their surveillance systems. Accuracy of GPS is affected by the presence of high buildings and can be reduced to as little as 50% at times but the developers of Galileo claim that the new system will still maintain 95% accuracy even in these circumstances. Services will be available using Galileo from 2014, and will be accurate to within a metre because it uses the atomic clock, and if there is a failure from any of the satellites at any point then Galileo users will be informed extremely swiftly.

Vehicle manufacturers are excited about the systems launch because it will enable them to further develop the technology in their cars. Areas of particular interest are associated with making cars ‘semi automatic’, where they are monitored by the drivers but the car essentially drives itself. In order for this kind of system to be safe it is vital it has accurate, minute by minute updates of the vehicles location. This is where Galileo comes into play.

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Tom Tom’s Webfleet Mobile Supports Your Mobile Workforce

TrackCompare — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 17:21:48 +0000

‘Webfleet Mobile’ has recently been launched by the vehicle tracking provider TomTom. Webfleet is for use as an application for ‘Smartphones’ and allows fleet managers to have updates on their mobile regarding their fleet’s movements. The operating systems that the application runs on are android and ios, providing coverage for as many different phones as possible.

To further enhance the ability of the application to help businesses internationally, as well as in the UK, TomTom have made the ‘Webfleet Mobile’ application support seven different languages, and has made it available in 21 different countries.

The benefits for customers was paramount in the design of Webfleet Mobile, as when managers who run teams are out of the office, their ability to manage their employees performance is not diminished. Managers can see the location of their vehicles on a map, with information on the employees estimated time of arrival at the destination. This not only has benefits for the drivers in terms of the added safety that they gain when their manager knows where they are, particularly important for lone workers, but Managers can check that their employees are performing the tasks for which they were employed.

The added benefits of the system, along with the ability to view incoming orders, are that Managers can send jobs through to their employees TomTom SatNav and they will automatically be routed the best journey to their destination.

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Tracker & Direct Line Work Together To Assess Risk

TrackCompare — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 15:33:50 +0000

Insurance company Direct Line have formed a partnership with Tracker, the vehicle tracking solution provider, to monitor driver’s, in particular young drivers, behaviour for a year. This will help Tracker to establish how they can best deliver their solutions into the retail vehicle insurance sector, and will help Direct Line to assess the risk that their drivers have of being involved in an incident.

The process of analysis is scheduled to last for a year and includes thousands of drivers. The Managing Director of Tracker believes that vehicle tracking solution providers have an important role to play in helping the insurance industry to assess risk. The benefit for Tracker is that they will have an enhanced insight into what their customers in the insurance industry need most from their vehicle tracking solution provider.

The reason why this partnership is so effective for Direct Line is that vehicle tracking is the best indicator of good or bad driving behaviours. Bad driving behaviours cause more risk to drivers and other road users. They also cost companies like Direct Line more money in insurance claims. Bad driving behaviours include braking harshly and excessively and speeding. Vehicle tracking solutions can highlight these behaviours because they record when they occur and this data is available for download from the tracking provider’s server.

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Volkswagen Commercial Claims Many Van Drivers May Be Fuel Ignorant

TrackCompare — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 22:32:12 +0000

Recent research from Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles UK states that more than 25% of van drivers do not consider how much fuel they are consuming on a daily basis.

The findings of the report also claims that it is not solely the drivers that are guilty of not maximising fuel efficiency, as many van fleet operators also admitted to taking only limited measures to improve efficiency and reduce monthly fuel spend.

According to the report only 42% of the van fleet operators that took part in the research considered route planning for their drivers and only 18% of van drivers surveyed have received training to help them drive more efficiently.

Volkswagen’s report clearly shows that many van operators may be significantly overspending on fuel and could greatly benefit from taking measures to improve their drivers’ fuel efficiency. This is where solutions like fuel cards and fleet vehicle tracking systems come into their own as they offer the insight businesses need to monitor the fuel usage and fuel efficiency performance of each driver/vehicle. The information provided by these solutions allows managers to understand where inefficiencies are occurring and identify what action needs to be taken to quickly address the situation. Both fuel cards and vehicle tracking solutions have proven themselves to be an effective way of managing and monitoring an employee’s driving performance.

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Navman Wireless Launch New Vehicle Tracking Range

TrackCompare — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 22:28:08 +0000

Navman Wireless has recently launched its new tracking systems, ‘Essential Fleet+’ and ‘Complete’, with the aim of providing as much flexibility as part of its vehicle tracking solutions as possible. This is because Navman know that their customers’ needs are variable and, in order to retain as large a customer base as possible, Navman need to be compatible with this.

Navman’s vehicle tracking solutions have a range of feature set up options that customers can choose from. Among the things on offer are photographic images to enhance your view of the locations which your drivers may be, using Google maps, and comprehensive alerting and reporting features.
With the emergence of vehicle tracking systems and the publicity regarding how they can save companies money in the economic circumstances of today, competition has been fierce. This means that customers have a lot of options when it comes to price between vehicle tracking suppliers.

Navman, however, has made themselves even more versatile than their rivals because it offers different prices and upgrade options within their ‘Essential Fleet+’ and ‘Complete’ vehicle tracking system. As businesses grow, they can upgrade their package to make the Navman fit with their company’s needs for as long as possible.

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Skyguard Helps Brits in Distress Abroad

TrackCompare — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:50:00 +0000

Skyguard, an emergency response specialist company, have designed a system that they call a ‘personal emergency service’, with which travellers can summon assistance at the push of a button in 34 different countries across Europe, in addition to South Africa and Russia.

The device that launches the emergency response is called ‘MySOS’, and is so small it can be attached to the owners belt or their key ring. The system can also be downloaded as an application for Blackberry mobiles.

Skyguard’s customers can provide detailed information of themselves to Skyguard, such as addresses, next of kin details, work details, a photo and even important medical details (such as any conditions suffered and which medications they are takiing to treat that condition). The Skyguard system uses GPS technology to trace the location of their customer when the alarm is activated. The UK based response centre will talk to the customer if it’s safe to do so, or listen in. They can then co-ordinate an emergency response in the country the alarm call is originating from and pass important information to the customer’s employers or relatives.

Skyguard’s system is already used by approx 50% of Police forces in England to protect their officers, and by thousands of others. The success of the system was so encouraging that it prompted the owners of Skyguard to launch Skyguard international, providing peace of mind to Brits abroad, and possibly saving lives.

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Businesses Are Keen To Know More About Employee Driving Behaviour

TrackCompare — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 16:05:19 +0000

A leading vehicle tracker provider has found that more and more of their customers are requesting information on their employee’s ‘driving behaviour’. This is mainly driven by the extremely high price of fuel, because businesses need to significantly reduce the amount they spend on fuel. Across the UK, fuel expenses are usually the largest monthly outgoing that a business running a fleet of vehicles has to contend with.

Vehicle Tracking can help fleet managers to reduce their fuel expenditure by analysing whether the vehicle is exceeding the speed limit, braking to excess or idling for long amounts of time. Idling is likely to happen if, for example, your driver is caught in traffic jams or is leaving the engine running whilst they are making deliveries. You may think that it is entirely out of your control if your employee is caught in a traffic jam but this is where another feature of many tracking systems comes into play; the route planning function. Using this function, you can find alternative routes to destinations and reduce the amount of time lost in traffic jams and the amount of fuel lost through idling.

Excessive speeding and braking could be tackled through driver training and education programmes. You could provide your employees with key performance indicators based on the data the tracking system provides on them. This is usually available online.

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Navman’s Vehicle Tracking Saves Trust Money

TrackCompare — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 21:27:57 +0000

Trafford Housing Association is responsible for approximately 9000 homes in the Trafford area. They realised that improvements needed to be made to the efficiency of their fleet of 80 housing maintenance vehicles so that they could save money and provide a better service to their tenants. It was decided by senior management that installing vehicle tracking would be the ideal way to find efficiency savings and implement better practises into the work they do.

The system will allow customer service operatives to locate, via their PC, the closest vehicle to a particular property when the call from a tenant comes in and send that engineer to carry out the maintenance works. This will improve the response time of calls, reducing tenant complaints and potentially saving thousands of pounds because damage to the properties could be decreased by the speed an engineer arrives on site, especially if it is a situation such as a leak.

A significant amount of money is likely to be saved through the route planning function of the Navman vehicle tracking system because it means engineers would be travelling the shortest distance possible between their jobs, saving fuel. Across a fleet of 80 vehicles this could easily mean that the tracking system would pay for itself through the savings that it would make.

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