Vehicle mismanagement is a common problem - be it an individual using a couple of cars or a company managing a fleet of vehicles. Vehicles get misused, fuel and kilometer usage is misreported, and invoices are tampered with.
If you are managing your vehicles and drivers manually, these issues can never be completely done away with. Misappropriation and pilferage are real, day-to-day problems that both individuals and businesses owning vehicles have to deal with regularly.
However, the right vehicle tracker can help resolve these issues. It is not just about tracking the vehicle - which is no less important, for example, in dealing with vehicle misuse by drivers. A vehicle tracker can also, for example, alert you on the health of a vehicle or driver behaviour such as over-speeding. In this blog, we discuss about what is a GPS vehicle tracking system and how a vehicle tracker can help you deal with vehicle mismanagement.
Vehicle Mismanagement - Day-to-Day Problems & Challenges
Vehicle owners face several challenges on a regular basis when managing their vehicles. These problems are difficult to resolve manually. We discuss a few here.
- Vehicle use: Drivers misusing vehicles is a common problem. Vehicles often deviate from its intended route for unofficial purposes. Once a driver takes the car out, if is not tracked, you cannot do much about where it goes or what route it takes.
- Kilometer report: You may be able to roughly calculate how many kilometers a vehicle has traveled. But it is not feasible to manually track the kilometers or the distance traveled by your vehicles. Lack of a proper kilometer report is a big challenge and is a major loophole in vehicle management.
- Fuel usage: It is nearly impossible to manually track fuel usage in a vehicle. Not to mention driver activities like excessive idling. At best, you can check the fuel bills and invoices but even those get tampered with.
- Excessive idling: Idling is keeping the vehicle engine switched on when not in motion. This is related to driver behaviour and results in an increase in fuel usage and cost. There is no way you can find out or keep a check on excessive idling unless you use a tracker.
- Overspeeding: Overspeeding is a serious issue. This is also related to driver behaviour and cannot be manually tracked.
- Invoice tampering: Tampering with invoices is a common problem that cannot be easily detected. Pilfering by misreporting of fuel bills and invoices leads to serious losses over a period of time.
What is a GPS vehicle tracking system?
A GPS vehicle tracking system helps you track, monitor, and manage vehicles. It is based on GPS technology. While there are several types of location-based tracking technology, GPS is satellite-based. When combined with mobile technology, a GPS tracking system is greatly enhanced in terms of its usefulness.
What can you track using a GPS vehicle tracker?
A GPS vehicle tracker does not track just the physical location of a vehicle. An advanced system has many features to help you manage all your vehicles efficiently.
- Route and Location: Using a GPS vehicle tracker, you can track the exact routes and locations that the vehicle travels in real-time. Also, view reports on the same.
- Mileage / Distance traveled: You can track the mileage or distance traveled. Quickly access kilometers reports whenever required.
- Vehicle use: Ensure that the driver does not divert the vehicle for unofficial purposes. Receive alerts when the vehicle enters or exits a particular area or whenever a vehicle starts and stops. Track driving hours.
- Fuel: Keep a check on fuel usage and costs. Receive alerts on excessive idling.
- History: View or download reports and history related to vehicle usage and driver behaviour as and when required.
- Invoices: Check invoice records whenever required.
How A GPS Vehicle Tracking System Helps Businesses?
1.
Increases driver accountability
The most important benefit of using a vehicle tracker is an increase in accountability. When drivers know that they are being tracked, accountability automatically increases and aberrant behaviour can be kept in check. This reduces malpractices and even prevent accidents due to over-speeding.
2.
Stay alert and secure
One of the important functions of a GPS vehicle tracker is to send alerts and notifications. It can be regarding anything important that you want to stay updated on - vehicle use and start, engine hours, insurance updates, driver duty hours, vehicle entering or exiting a particular location, fuel costs and bills, excessive idling, etc.
3.
Easy and error-free payments
Since, you can track the exact working hours of the drivers, payments become easy and error-free. The system can be integrated with the payment system.
4.
Better decision making
A GPS vehicle tracking system provides comprehensive reports and statistics on important aspects of your vehicle operations. You can access these reports to take informed decisions that can positively affect your business. For example, you can easily identify aberrant behaviour that otherwise may go unnoticed.
Conclusions
A GPS vehicle tracker is a useful solution for managing vehicles. It eliminates most operational challenges that are a result of manual processes. You can save on costs, monitor driver behavior, and ensure good health of the vehicle using a GPS vehicle tracker. Just make sure that you choose the one that's right for your business needs.
