Tracking vehicles on the road

WaveOn knows exactly where your vehicle is, any time, anywhere.

November 2007: Keeping tab of commercial fleets on British roads is the job of a vehicle-tracking application developed by Singapore’s InfoWave.

The application used by Fleet Observer is InfoWave’s Waveon 606e v2 that tracks and monitors the movement of vehicles, assets and people. It uses GPS to determine the precise location of a vehicle or an asset to which it is attached and records the position of the asset at regular intervals of between 1 and 10 minutes. The data on the location is then transmitted to a central server at Fleet Observer’s office via the GSM/GPRS module embedded in the tracker. This allows the location to be displayed against a map backdrop in real-time or for analysis later, using the Fleet Observer solution.

In addition to offering a single map view, Fleet Observer also offers fleet managers and business owners the flexibility to view up to four maps of different geographical areas in a single interface.

The system is a centrally-hosted, web-based service. It is simple to use and easily accessible via any computers or mobile devices including cell phones, Blackberry and PDAs connected to the Internet.

Fleet managers and business owners configure and track their vehicles, assets and people in minutes. They can also view the activity history (such as time, speed and direction) of each vehicle, asset or person at any point in time. This is useful in managing fleet and employee behaviour and productivity.

The Waveon 606e application can set virtual boundaries around restricted locations, commonly known as “geo-fences”. When a vehicle or employee enters or leaves the area, the vehicle tracker triggers an SMS notification that contains information such as time, date and location stamp to the fleet manager.

Waveon 606e can be configured to notify the manager whenever an unacceptable event has occurred such as the fact that a vehicle’s ignition switch is still on or excessive speeding.

With the use of SMS alerts, Waveon 606e saves on communication costs. It increases efficiency by continuously monitoring the mileage of vehicles and notifying fleet managers whenever the vehicle is due for inspection and road safety test and maintenance, and the payment of road tax.

On the bus in Europe
Over in Europe, a “Transit Arrival Times Prediction System” that relies on Waveon 606e has been installed for Pont-Bus, covering routes in Italy, Switzerland and Germany.

Pont-Bus, based in Sindelfingen, Germany, is a company that manages bus services between Germany and Sicily.

Developed on EdisonWeb’s application platform, WebLocator, TATPS runs on the GSM/GPRS network. The system tracks the movement of vehicles anywhere across the countries on a 24/7 basis, calculates arrival and departure times, and provides alerts to notify fleet personnel and passengers of “live” timetable information including detailed route maps via their mobile devices.

The new system leverages on Waveon 606e v2’s GPS technology to determine the location of each bus and its status, whether it is on time or running late. Using Waveon 606e v2’s user-friendly call features, bus drivers are able to alert or relay messages to the central control station regarding traffic conditions and other distress situations.

Upon receiving the above location data for each bus, the TATPS’ Arrival Precision Engine will process and calculate the ETA. Instead of contacting the central control station to enquire the status of the bus, passengers can now poll the bus concerned directly and receive the travel information instantaneously via SMS, which is facilitated by Waveon 606e v2’s GSM module installed in the bus.

Using the TATPS’ Passenger List Management module, Pont-Bus can coordinate transport services, optimise routes, manage passenger information and notify passengers with ease. By automating tracking, mapping, routing, and reporting of trips, the system has helped reduce the company’s overall costs through tighter timetables and fewer resources.

The online vehicle tracking project will be implemented on a pilot basis for a small bus fleet operating between Italy, Switzerland and Germany. The system, delivered via an ASP model, will have the capacity to expand up to thousands of buses in a full-scale implementation.

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