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Keep An Eye On Your Cargo With Vehicle Tracking

Vehicle tracking is a highly effective security measure. Knowing where vehicles and drivers are, particularly if they are carrying costly cargo, is a way of ensuring the drivers safety and that of the goods they are carrying. It enables companies to trace goods, their containers, and deliveries from the point of origin right up to their destination.

In most cases, companies are not able to measure Key Performance Indicators accurately before implementing a tracking system. Once implemented, these GPS systems utilize satellites to monitor vehicles or cargo containers, allowing them to ensure there are no unplanned stops and that a pre planned route is followed.

Automatic notification of irregular vehicle activity such as speeding or using vehicles inappropriately out of hours, allows companies to keep a close eye on their cargo. Alerts can be set to monitor any vehicle activity, from cargo temperature to doors being open or closed. Companies can even set their alarms to trigger when a vehicle enters or leaves a designated area. They can be delivered via screen pop-up, email or SMS to any chosen number of recipients.

Through monitoring these close movements, companies are able to resolve disputes, provide proof of service or reconcile timesheets. For example with parcel deliveries, if there was a discrepancy over a scheduled delivery time, vehicle tracking becomes very useful for revealing the exact time the delivery was conducted. Vehicle tracking can produce reports focussing on this history, journeys, locations, speeding of vehicles, working hours and more.

Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellite systems use satellites that orbit the earth at the same speed of the earth's rotation, to enable them to continuously monitor particular areas of choice. These chosen areas can cover as much ground as the entire country of Australia, however still has the capability of focussing on single vehicles.

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) systems on the other hand, are networks of multiple satellites circulating the globe and monitoring activity all over the world. Companies are only able to consider using these satellite systems for vehicle tracking when the transmitter located on the vehicle or cargo has a direct line of sight to the satellite. They are totally impractical when operating on double-stacked railcars, in the holds of vessels, and in the stacks at container yards.

There are many ways a company will see positive turnaround from installing these measures, such as increasing revenue due to improved productivity and vehicle operation. It also helps improve customer service as companies can provide customers with an accurate status of their deliveries or services, improving customer satisfaction.

Vehicle tracking also helps to uncovering hidden liabilities such as fraudulent overtime claims and bad driver behaviour and help reduce a company's carbon footprint by eliminating excessive fuel usage through unnecessary journey planning.

With vehicle tracking, organisations are able to increase vehicle security by constantly knowing where their transportation is, ensuring the full safety of their drivers and the goods that they carry.

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Dominic Donaldson is an expert in GPS Technology Find out more about vehicle tracking and how it can help the safety of your drivers and cargo.

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