Every day, there are new technologies that make doing your job a lot easier. Whether it improves efficiencies and/or saves you time, they’re an integral part of profitability and sustainability. And while many of them are well-known across the board (such as GPS and dash cams), others are sometimes off the radar.
One of them is geofencing. If you manage any kind of fleet, this is one of the most useful solutions you can integrate to keep your business running like a well-oiled machine.
Geofencing refers to the practice of using a GPS or RFID application that alerts you of specific user behaviors. For example, within the context of marketing, this could mean that as soon as a potential customer is near your business, they could receive a text alert of a sale or promotion. By the same token, within a fleet management context, it means that once a driver or rental customer crosses a preset boundary, they’ll receive a notification informing them of potential perils and to return to the agreed upon location.
Geofencing works by utilizing the same network of satellites as global positioning systems (GPS). This is what allows you to have real-time information about a device’s exact location, down to the latitude, longitude, and altitude. This means that none of your assets can get truly lost, and if they’re stolen, they can be easily recovered.
The three types of geofences you can implement for your fleet vehicles are as follows:
This is the type of geofence that you’ll use when you need to have a very specific custom boundary. Here, you set the boundary of the geofence point by point to create a filled-in fence that contours to a specific set of streets, the edges of a park, or any other type of zone you wish.
Fleet managers often use these custom geofence boundaries when their GPS-tagged assets are expected to operate within a very strict set of borders. For example, polygonal geofencing is often used for:
Construction Equipment: When more precision is desired, some fleet managers may set a custom border around the exact construction zone their equipment is going to be used in.
Street Maintenance: Some municipalities might want to make sure their street maintenance vehicles stay within the city limits. Polygonal fences that follow the city limits or outermost streets can be invaluable for keeping street maintenance vehicles within their proper zone of operations.
Law Enforcement: Create a custom zone defining your law enforcement department’s jurisdiction and avoid potential confusion and disputes later.
Geofencing is highly customizable, so there is plenty of room for adjustment when utilizing these features in your fleet management practice.
The fastest and easiest kind of geofence to set up — set a size, pick a point on the map, and you’re done. This type of geofence is usually selected when you just want to make sure an asset doesn’t stray too far from one area.
Some companies use very small circular geofences to mark off delivery/pickup zones for tracking pickup and drop-off events. For example, construction equipment rental companies use it to denote the construction site cranes or other large and mostly stationary assets might operate in.
Geofencing by corridor is a popular option for transport companies sending fully loaded big rigs long distances. These geofences create a border along a stretch of highway and give you the option to tweak how wide the border is.
Most users create a border two to three miles wide so they don’t get alerts every time the driver has to go get gas, but can still be alerted when there’s a serious deviation from the assigned route. This helps ensure communication between the driver and the team back at headquarters to ensure all is well or if something needs to be addressed.
There are a lot of benefits to geofencing in addition to simply alerting you of where someone is located.
Every single business needs to prioritize the safety of their drivers, operators, employees, and renters. And while some hazards are obvious — such as a thunderstorm or car accident — others may go unnoticed until the risk of injury or death is imminent. Geofencing allows you to alert everyone of such dangers, such as rip currents.
No matter your industry, you’ve invested a significant amount of money into your fleet and assets. Integrating geofencing into your fleet management practices enables you to prevent them from entering high-risk areas where they could be damaged.
People are oversaturated with information. They already receive a million email, social media, and application alerts on their phones. If they start receiving information that pertains to certain members of your fleet — but not to them – they’ll start tuning them out. On the other hand, when you utilize this feature to send communications that are specific to the listener, you’ll have a better likelihood of them paying attention.
If you’re running a boat or car rental business, you need to inform your target audience about your location and services. You can set up your social media apps to display for people who have entered the geographic area where your business is located. You can also use these technologies to keep people within your database engaged via text messages when they’re close to your facilities.
Whether you’re notifying truck drivers of hazardous road conditions or letting boat renters know of an impending storm, you’re letting them know that you care about their safety. They no longer have to leave everything to chance and hope for the best. They are assured that if they are facing any risks, they’ll receive a notification from you.
It’s a fleet management best practice to know where your vehicles are located at any given moment. It’s also good to know who’s driving them and their ETA of either arriving at their destination or being returned to their point of origin.
If you’re in the trucking industry, geofencing is instrumental in gauging a cargo’s most accurate arrival time. This is extremely valuable — especially at a time when there are so many disruptions and delays in the supply chain. Using geofencing provides you with visibility from its point of origin to final destination.
Sometimes, unforeseen circumstances may cause an operator to be delayed in conducting a delivery or returning a rental. Being able to track their location at all times lets you know whether it looks like something may be amiss — such as being idle for too long — so that you can send assistance when needed.
Having an electronic log of where each of your assets are is a lot more accurate than relying on spreadsheets and notebooks. You can also use it to verify information of past activity, as well as the dates and times when they took place. All of this will better help you identify whether it’s time to scale, or whether your teams have been efficient with their routes, or renters responsible with their rentals.
Since geofencing informs you in real-time of all of your assets’ locations, you’ll be alerted whenever one of them is involved in suspicious activity, such as driving away from established routes. You can also use the technology to alert law enforcement about its location, so you can recover them faster.
Geofencing helps you make data-driven decisions regarding your fleet. This includes knowing travel times for specific routes, identifying common delays, estimating a task’s schedule, how long it takes to load and unload trucks, how long your customers will have to wait for a delivery, and other insights that can help you streamline efficiencies and productivity.
At Rastract, we offer all of the solutions you need to keep your drivers safe and your assets protected. We have extensive experience providing the right technologies for fleets in a wide array of industries, including government, heavy equipment, medical, public safety, marinas, boat rentals, oil and gas, and many more.
Contact us and let us know how we can help you.