Page 22 - Oil & Energy - March 2013

Smart Fleets
Providers Explain
Benefits of Their
GPS Solutions
• Monitor Vehicle Speed – With Speed
Limits, users can create and manage a
speeding policy using both frequency
and severity of speed limit violations.
• Industry Benchmarking – FleetMatics
can perform analysis for each cus-
tomer’s unique needs, providing deep
insight into each vehicle’s performance.
FleetMatics provides highly credible
industry benchmarks that identify
the best opportunities to improve
your fleet. FleetMatics can track and
compare each vehicle’s idling, mileage,
speed, and engine-on times with local
and relevant industry benchmarks.
• Improve Fleet Security – Receive a
notification when a vehicle starts or
moves during unauthorized hours.
With precise tracking, business owners
can easily track a stolen vehicle for
quick recovery of the vehicle and
on-board equipment.
• Decrease Overtime Hours – Manual
timesheets are a thing of the past.
Fleetmatics monitors the time
employees spend in the vehicle, how
long they work at each job site and
if they use vehicles for unauthorized
personal use.
• Instant Management Reports –
Recognize and prevent cost leakage
and inappropriate driver behavior with
easy, one-click reporting.
‘Hidden’ Benefits of GPS routing:
In addition to productivity gains, our
customers also benefit fromnewfound pride
in the professionalism they are able to offer
their customers. With the new efficiencies
created from implementing a GPS routing
system, customer response time improves
and customer service levels rise. “It’s really
convenient when you have a client call
asking where their product is and you can
pull up the exact location of the driver.
We can give our clients an hour’s notice
for when the driver will arrive. If a driver
is stuck somewhere, we can prove they are
in traffic,” says Fleetmatics customer and
Alpha Delivery Services company owner,
Laurie Bushouse. Our customers also
report that the use of GPS tracking on their
vehicles is actually seen as a benefit to
clients. “It gives us a legitimacy that a lot of
companies don’t have. We remain competi-
tive because of the tools that FleetMatics
gives us.” added Bushouse. Fleetmatics’
SaaS platform means it is accessible from
any Internet connected device. This is a big
bonus for customers that are always on the
go. “One thing I love about the program
is that it’s Web-based,” says Bushouse.
“I can check on my vehicles at home on
the weekend on my iPad.” The FleetMatics
Mobile App allows the user to access
key information about a fleet anytime,
anywhere.
GPS-based routing
and restricted roadways:
While our service doesn’t specifically
account for height and weight restrictions,
we do leverage mapping by Google Maps API
Premier to provide the most accurate maps
available with current traffic information.
Satellite and hybrid views can help guide our
drivers in the field to navigate trouble spots
most effectively.
Oil & Energy invited GPS providers to participate in a survey
about the solutions they provide. Fleetmatics, GPS North America
and NexTraq provided the following answers to our questions.
FLEETMATICS
Describe your GPS solution for fleets:
Fleetmatics is a powerful, yet elegantly
simple and easy to use software-as-a-service
(SaaS) application that delivers actionable,
GPS-based business insight, enabling
immediate results and sustained savings.
Our cost-effective web-based solutions
provide fleet opera-
tors with location
visibility, fuel usage,
speed, mileage, and other insights into
their mobile workforce, enabling them
to reduce operating and capital costs and
increase revenue. Fleetmatics serves more
than 17,000 customers, tracking more
than 330,000 vehicles worldwide. The only
equipment required onboard is a small GPS
transmitter device. These devices transmit
data to the Fleetmatics web-based software
platform that can be accessed anytime, from
any Internet-enabled device anywhere.
Advantages of using GPS in fuel delivery:
Fleetmatics helps customers reduce
costs and increase productivity. The pri-
mary benefits are:
• Increased Response Times – Customers
can view the location of every vehicle
and the current traffic patterns, which
enables them to identify the closest
vehicle and quickest route.
• Control Fuel Costs – The FleetMatics
System offers powerful reports and
alerts to help reduce idling and
gain control over fuel usage. The
FleetMatics Fuel Card, powered by
Fleetcor, and integrated reports help
to verify fuel card transactions and
pinpoint possible abuse.
22 • OIL&ENERGY