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A revolution in the logistics industry took place as Amazon introduced “same day delivery” service back in 2005. Just the idea of being able to deliver customer orders within the same day is perhaps the closest the e-Commerce industry will ever come to optimizing their delivery services. While same day delivery service was seen as an exclusive service in the past, it has become much more common and one of the most utilized service offered by the logistics industry.

Your Guide to Fleet Tracking

Fleet tracking offers businesses a way to keep track of their vehicles by utilizing GPS technology. Sounds very interesting, doesn’t it? Such a system truly enhances the performance of the fleet and helps in reducing operational costs.

The greatest challenges that most fleet operators face is being able to communicate with drivers and being able to identify traffic related data, keep up-to-date with any route changes, manage the timely maintenance of all the vehicles and ensure that everything is on schedule. This is a lot of work for anyone, let alone a fleet operator who must perform these tasks on daily basis.
Promoting efficiency and managing some of the most important areas of services, a fleet tracking system can mean a constant flow of the most accurate information to drivers. It can also significantly improve the level of communication and visibility; allowing fleets with the resources needed to minimize downtime and avoid any delays.

To help you understand this further, it is important that you learn more about fleet tracking systems. This article offers an explanation of a typical fleet tracking system and looks into how a fleet tracking systems work.

What Is A Fleet Tracking System?
A fleet tracking system uses location tracking technology installed in vehicles to gather relevant data and help fleet managers make strategic decisions to improve their operations and promote efficiency. To make this simple to understand, think of fleet tracking as a system that collects details and helps in pinpointing details about their whereabouts. Currently, the two most used methods of utilizing fleet tracking systems are GPS and GLONASS. GPS is a satellite-based navigation system that gathers location related information along with details about the time. GLONASS, on the other hand, uses satellite navigation system monitored by Russia’s Aerospace Defense Forces. While GLONASS is still widely used as an alternative to GPS, it is not as popular as the former.

How Does A Typical Fleet Tracking System Work?
Fleet tracking works in a straightforward manner. Using orbiting satellites to receive and send back information via radio signals, fleet tracking pinpoints the exact location along with the movement of the vehicle being tracked. These vehicles have a GPS already installed on the dashboard and send/receive information from the system that can help the fleet manager evaluate their performance, study their location and effectively manage the quality of services day and night.

Benefits of Fleet Tracking

• Cost Savings

Fleet tracking allows you to identify the shortest route to the destination and avoid traffic. This can help reduce fuel consumption and minimize other operation costs such as those associated with overtime shifts by employees.

• Reduced Downtime

Being able to make informed decisions using fleet tracking can improve productivity and reduce downtime for vehicles.

• Improves Quality of Services

With a fleet tracking system in place, businesses are able to fully optimize their resources, save time by avoiding busy streets and respond to services calls quicker than ever.

Whether you are an average consumer or a tech out in the field waiting for some important parts to arrive, you want to be able to receive the most accurate information about delivery details and plan your schedule around that. From helping the logistics industry better monitor their performance and offer high quality services to assisting in speeding up tasks common to households and offices, fleet tracking has endless benefits.

Ready to take advantage of fleet tracking and power up your business operations? Dispatch is an option! Dispatch brings real-time visual tracking that allows you to predict local deliveries, track the driver’s route and exactly how long it will take for your to receive your package or for it to be delivered. The Dispatch dashboard allows you to set-up multiple order simultaneous, improve efficiency and above all – keep you in control of your deliveries and your work day.

With smartphones in our pockets and apps like Uber, BiteSquad and Amazon Prime, we’ve come to expect that anything we need or want can be delivered to our doors at a moment’s notice. Takeout, groceries, household essentials like toothpaste and paper towels, books, music and movies...the list goes on.

As consumers, these are all deliveries we take for granted. But what about our business deliveries? Most of us don’t spend a lot of time thinking about same-day delivery needs for our businesses. That is, until we need to make a delivery. What happens when you have a technician on a jobsite, and they need a part to finish the job? Or when you need to deliver an important document, and you don’t have time to wait? Or when you want to make a last-minute delivery to a valued client?

Many businesses use traditional courier services for these types of deliveries. But traditional courier services can be slow and often lack transparency. You have to contact the courier company in advance to schedule your delivery, and you never know the location of your driver. There’s no way to know if your technician will be waiting 10 minutes or 10 hours. You can’t be confident that your time-sensitive document will get there in time. Plus, there’s no guarantee that a traditional courier service will even do same-day deliveries (and if they do, what will it cost?).

If you’re ever in a situation like this, you might want to consider partnering with an on-demand courier service. Here are just a few of the benefits.

Make the Deliveries You Need, When You Need Them
For many businesses, delivery schedules are sporadic and unpredictable. You never know when you’ll need that critical part or document delivered across town. This is one of the biggest courier challenges for businesses. You need the delivery made when you need it. But it can be impossible to predict when the situation will arise.

Traditional courier services can be unreliable and unpredictable in situations like this. Traditional courier services are often low tech operations, so scheduling deliveries is a slow, manual process, and you usually don’t have a great deal of transparency into the location of your driver, the status of the delivery, or the estimated costs. Because they have a limited number of drivers and delivery vehicles, same-day deliveries can be expensive (if they’re even possible).

But now, there are on-demand courier services borrowing ideas developed for the consumer delivery market and applying them to industrial and business deliveries. These technology-based solutions allow you to quickly and easily request a courier from your smartphone or computer. You can set pickup and dropoff locations, delivery times, vehicle requirements, and more. And because these on-demand courier services employee a pool of reliable, efficient, independent drivers who are already on the road and in your area, you can be sure that your delivery will be made when you need it.

Track Your Deliveries
Technology-based on-demand courier services offer significant benefits when you want to track your driver and the status of your deliveries. These software solutions send your delivery request to nearby drivers the second you make it, and utilize GPS to track the driver’s route in real time.

With this tracking software, you’ll know exactly where your driver is and when you can expect them to pickup and dropoff your package. You can share this information with the coworkers, clients or customers who are expecting the delivery, so they know when the package is on the way and don’t need to waste time waiting for the delivery. This is especially important if you do business in locations where drivers might get caught in traffic.

With this level of visibility, you can be confident that your delivery will be delivered on time and will end up at the right location. You can even contact your driver if you have questions, if the job changes, or if you have any special requests.

Avoid the Expenses of Owning and Maintaining a Fleet
If deliveries and pickups are a regular part of your business, you might have thought about investing in your own fleet of vehicles. But this can cost you a lot of money and time. By conservative estimates, the yearly Total Cost of Ownership for a fleet vehicle starts at $9,000 and increased from there depending on the type and number of vehicles you need. And this estimate only includes fixed costs like depreciation and insurance and variable costs like maintenance, repairs and fuel. The cost of employing and training a team of drivers just adds to that cost.

By partnering with an on-demand courier company, you can avoid the expense of maintaining a fleet while still satisfying your delivery needs. And new technology-based on-demand courier services are able to connect you directly to local delivery drivers, so you can work with a large network of independent drivers who can most quickly, efficiently and economically deliver your packages. These drivers are already on the road and in your area, so you don’t to invest in additional resources or add to your overhead.

Check out our article on preventive fleet maintenance if you want to know more about the time and money it takes to maintain your own fleet.

Focus on the Things You Do Best
Unless you’re a delivery company, you aren’t in the transportation business (and if you are a delivery company you probably won’t need any on-demand courier services!). By focusing your time and energy on the things your business does best, instead of delivery logistics, you’ll be able to grow your business and increase your profits.

If this sounds good to you, you should consider partnering with a technology-based on-demand courier service like Dispatch.

Dispatch is an easy-to-use, on-demand courier service that will enable you to make the deliveries you need, when you need them (including same-day and last-minute deliveries). Our technology solution connects you to delivery drivers in your area, allows you to track the location and status of your delivery in real time, and provides full visibility to take both the headache and the worry out of the delivery process.

If you own or manage a fleet, you know that maintaining your vehicles is key to making sure they remain operational and on the road. Any vehicle downtime can cost you time, profits and potentially customers. You also know that maintaining a fleet can be costly and time-consuming.

To make the most out of your fleet, and ensure maximum vehicle availability, you need a comprehensive preventative fleet maintenance plan. Here are 6 tips you can use to take the headache out of fleet maintenance.