What is Fleet Management
& Automated Vehicle Location?

Management of Fleets can now be greatly assisted by the use of Automated Vehicle Location (AVL) systems.  All AVL’s have an ability to show vehicle location on via a map displayed on a PC.  There are a suite of more advanced functions that are also available on many Automated Vehicle Location systems such as Driver Behaviour and Engine Management reports.  Some niche or very sophisticated Automated Vehicle Location systems include deep integration to third party dispatch systems, vehicle operating diagnostics or driver monitoring for legislation compliance.

Tracking

Trip Reporting (time, speed, distance, location) – Tracking is at the core of Automated Vehicle Location systems, it allows a central user to see a single vehicle or the whole fleet in one view on a map.  If a central dispatcher wants to know the route taken or time taken for a vehicle to travel between two locations they can easily see this plotted on a map.  There are many different reports that are based on data captured from the tracking function of an Automated Vehicle Location system.  These range form simple Trip Summary reports to detailed Driver and Engine behavior reports.

Geofence alerts & notifications – The Geofence is a key tool for Ops Managers and Dispatchers as they allow a range of alerts and reports to be triggered based on a vehicle entering or exiting a predefined geographic location.

Communications

Text based messaging – An ability for a Dispatcher to send a message directly to a vehicles Mobile Data Terminal (MDT).  This message (similar to an email) is sent from within the Automated Vehicle Location system, all history is held within the AVL and associated with a vehicle or driver

Job order dispatch  - Work orders can be dispatched directly from the Automated Vehicle Location system with full job instructions and if integrated to back end system other information such as part numbers or equipment specifications can also be included

Navigation instructions – Some Automated Vehicle Location systems have the functionality to send navigation instructions directly to a vehicle.  The driver can then follow instructions to navigate towards a preset destination

Traffic congestion alerts – Using third party data some Automated Vehicle Location systems are capability of passing Traffic Congestion information to the vehicle and displaying it on the Mobile Data Terminal

Video transmission – As safety of drivers is being linked to Diver Fatigue some niche AVL systems have added the ability to capture video of driver activity and in some cases allowing central dispatches to view this in real time.

Resource Management (Non-Vehicle)

Driver ID – If an Automated Vehicle Location system has the ability to connect Mobile Data Terminals they may also offer the ability for drivers to enter an ID each time they drive the vehicle.  With Driver ID the AVL system can then report on a specific driver as well as the vehicles operation and trips taken

Remote peripheral management – Connecting to other devices associated with  vehicles such as Hydraulic Arms, PTO’s Tippers etc allows further visibility of what, where and when activity is taking place on a vehicle.  All this activity can be captured for alerting or historical reporting.  NOTE: this is Tracking Hardware dependent and many lower spec devices will not provide this capability

Driver behavior reporting  - When companies need to confirm compliancy to Duty of Care type legislation such as Working Time Directive, Fatigue Management, Hours of Service etc they are able to capture driver history and run daily/weekly /monthly reports in preparation for any official audits by the government agencies.  In some Automated Vehicle Location systems Driver Behavior reporting can also be used as a training add when associated with engine diagnostics i.e. continual harsh braking and excessive acceleration indicates poor driving behavior that has a direct fuel cost.

Safety (panic alerts) –Panic Alerts allow staff to be remote from the vehicle and still be able to send an alert back to a central location via the Automated Vehicle Location system. This is hardware dependent.

Vehicle Management

Vehicle maintenance scheduling – Although there are some very specific and fully functional stand alone Maintenance Applications some Automated Vehicle Location systems also include functionality to assist Fleet Managers to coordinate vehicle routing maintenance needs through scheduling and job allocation.

Vehicle diagnostics (Engine) – A few AVL systems are able to capture raw data from an engines Management Interface and some are able to take this further and provide correlated data indicating overall vehicle stress for an individual trip or over a reported duration.  Vehicle behavior reporting will continue to evolve as engine manufactures progress standard interface designs.

Security (anti-theft protection & alerts) – Using the Geofence functionally alerts can be set for out of hours movement of vehicles.  Some Automated Vehicle Location systems provide a range of different reports that have preset time windows where a vehicle is allowed to operate.  Using the Driver ID function can also offer an additional level of security as the vehicle can be disabled if an unauthorized driver tries to operate it out of hours.