Why You Need Fleet GPS

By Neil Zawacki
Updated: December 16, 2011

Fleet GPS has been adopted by small businesses at a rapid rate over the last few years. They use the technology to track the locations of their vehicles in real time and find the fastest route to a destination. These are not the only reasons you need a fleet GPS system, however.

One of the main benefits of fleet GPS is that it will help to keep your fleet of vehicles safe. If a vehicle’s ignition should start without permission, a message alert will be sent to your dispatch team. If the vehicle should then be stolen, you have a tracking device that will show where it is being driven to. The police can use this information to recover your property and bring the thief to justice.

A second advantage of fleet GPS is the amount of time it can save your employees. If a driver should come across heavy traffic or construction, it can immediately direct them to the next best possible route. Most of the GPS systems can even alert them that traffic is ahead and give them sufficient time to avoid it.

You can also significantly lower fuel costs with a fleet GPS tracking system. Your drivers will spend less time idling since the system will send out an alert whenever they do this too much. You can also plan out the most efficient route to your driver’s destination and shave off miles from each trip.

Here’s another reason you need to buy a fleet GPS system: employee timesheets will be more accurate. They won’t be able to pad the amount of time that they worked since you’ll have specific information about when their vehicle arrived or departed a work site. This might just be ten minutes here or there, but it can add up quite a bit each month. A side benefit is that this can reduce the amount of unnecessary overtime.

Fleet GPS can also help your drivers to find difficult and obscure locations. If a customer’s home is hidden away in the hills somewhere, they will have step-by-step instructions on how to reach it. This can save a great deal of time in many cases and free up your drivers for more work when the job is completed.

One final reason that you need fleet GPS: you can greatly improve the quality of your customer service. If a client wants to know when the driver will arrive, you can give them an accurate estimate. Your drivers will also tend to show up faster at job sites since they will be taking more efficient routes. Your customers will be happier, and you’ll have a better chance for repeat business.