How Does a GPS Vehicle Tracking System Work?

Many individuals and companies are seeking a vehicle tracking system for their car or fleet of vehicles to benefit from the cost savings and increased security they provide. Generally, the most sought after vehicle tracking systems are those that use GPS (Global Positioning System) technology.

These systems normally require a small tracking unit to be installed a vehicle. All of the hardware is normally contained within the unit but some systems use external GPS or GPRS antennas (external to the tracking unit not the vehicle). The GPS antenna continually receives transmissions broadcast by GPS satellites orbiting the Earth and uses these transmissions to calculate its current global position, speed and direction of travel. A real time tracking device will send this data back to a secure server, normally once every 1 – 5 minutes. The tracking devices send data back to the tracking providers secure server using the GPRS (mobile data) network.

The user is able to access tracking data via a secure internet based application. The application provides users with both real time and historic functionality including live mapping, alerts and daily activity reports.
GPS tracking systems provide the most benefit to companies that require accurate location and speed of travel data.