Even the most minor details count for a lot when it comes to improving your fleet. As a manager you’ll know how essential it is to understand exactly what’s going on in your business from where your vehicles are to the amount of time that they spend idling. While micromanaging isn’t the most effective solution, having enough information to change up tasks throughout the day is essential if you want to improve your performance.
There’s a whole host of fleet management hardware out there, with a range of different devices built to give managers a comprehensive look at how their vehicles are performing at any given time. Most devices use GPS tracking to indicate a tracked vehicle’s position at any point, while using computer software to keep a record of the vehicle’s journeys over time.
Of course, that’s a pretty basic level – pretty much every bit of fleet management hardware comes equipped with far more features than this. Most trackers in the modern day record speed, time spent idling and the like, with some designed from the ground up to help fleet managers measure performance.
Most fleets tend to go for lower cost options for their trackers, with the cost of higher tech trackers racking up particularly quickly. Buying on a budget doesn’t necessarily mean sacrificing performance, with a few devices designed to save money while offering high quality services. A lot of devices are designed for a bit of security along with monitoring, so they end up having to be wired into a vehicle to avoid detection.
GPS-based security is a solid system to protect against the average thief, but many criminals now come equipped with technology custom built to prevent GPS signals from being transmitted. This means that a lot of people have moved away from the security side of things, focusing on creating budget devices that don’t require expensive installation.
One of the most successful budget pieces of fleet management hardware is the CanTrack GPS Tracker. Coming at £99/unit with a yearly subscription of either £67 of £79 depending on options, the CanTrack device is pretty cost efficient, having saved on physical features rather than cutting back on actual functions.
Once it’s plugged into a vehicle’s on-board diagnostics port, the CanTrack tracker starts working quickly, with the whole thing being streamlined for performance and cost savings. The tracker operates in the same sort of way as most of its kind, showing a real time image of vehicle locations along with a few different options for displaying data.
There’s one surprising feature in the CanTrack software – they’ve licensed some high quality maps, going into a fair bit more detail than usual Google Maps-style things. This seems pretty useful for some delivery companies, with CanTrack specifically focusing on their software’s ability to map out business parks and the like.