Telematics integration with routing software

Telematics, integrated with routing software, allows real-time location and information of each vehicle to be viewed on a map within the routing software against the planned schedule.

Real-time visibility of how your routing and scheduling plan is working out in practice is a big benefit to fleet operators and their customers. Providing fleet controllers with the location of vehicles, whether routes are being adhered to or when problems occur such as an accident or delay, enables information affecting deliveries to be passed on to the end customer or corrective action to be taken. It also facilitates better future planning of delivery routes.

The data is available historically. Minor delays or issues that occur over many days that would have been missed can be spotted and improvements made. Events such as daily detours to favourite truck stops for breaks can easily be spotted, not necessarily a problem unless it is too far off route.

The combination of a vehicle's GPS signal, which is transmitted many times a minute, with the high-quality data maps that Descartes routing solutions use means a vehicle's location may be plotted accurately on the map. Any comparisons of actual mileage v. planned mileage will therefore be highly accurate. This is useful when comparing planned routes v. actual routes and calculating the differences in fuel used and time taken to travel the distances.