With the tremendous growth seen in Industries across the globe, demand for effective transportation is on the rise. I would like to stress on the word effective because transportation is not only looked upon as a mere mean of fetching and delivering good but also a mean to increase your company’s credibility and efficiency.

Imagine a truck load of goods missing the deadline. Not only would you suffer in losses for that particular delivery but also loose precious credibility with your client. If the frequency of delayed delivery increases, your credibility is going to suffer further. Most freight company’s as well as producers rely on mobile phone communication and road maps to keep track of their vehicles.

However, your driver, no matter the experience can never predict the entire road network of a region. A map is helpful but can become outdated. Add to that the fact that you not able to track your fleet’s progress yourself but are relying solely on your driver with precious good. If you are operating on a fleet of anything more than 20 vehicles, you are definitely in high waters.

This is where a visual management technology call GPS or Global Positioning System comes in. Using highly efficient and reliable satellites, the receiver is able to not only show your driver the way but also relay back the position of the vehicle to the satellite and back to you. This all happens using a very powerful microchip embedded into the device which can do the maths in milliseconds and keep a constant track of your vehicles.

Not only do you have information about your fleet supply chain movement within a few seconds but you no longer have to guess your way while planning routes. True this might not prevent delays but you are now able to formulate backup plans as you have the right information at the right time.

Since GPS based Fleet Management Systems provide you with live information and given the fact that you can revisit this information at any time you need, these high-tech Fleet Management Systems can be categorised broadly into Active, Passive and Hybrid Fleet Management Systems.

Features of a GPS system:

· Real time tracking of the vehicle

· Ability to store the data for convenient use

· Query facility to identify information for a location tracked on a map

· All generic mapping features like Zoom In, Zoom Out, Pan, Full Extent

· Generation of MIS reports for location tracking and speed analysis

· Customization of frequency of message passing

· Fully workable solution

This technology emerged as a Location Based Service (LBS) in developed countries since it requires a fully indexed road network, however with economic boom in developing countries, many private sector organisations like Navteq have indexed most of the heavy traffic and metropolitan road network. Many mobile phone companies like Nokia and ASUS have already started offering GPS functionality in their high end products. As more and more companies start offering GPS based products to their consumers, maintenance and operational costs of GPS based Fleet Management systems are guaranteed to come down.