Simple Track
See when a vehicle stops and the engine is turned off, and for how long, as well as the distance and driving time between stops. With Simple Track, each vehicle automatically reports each engine off (dark blue) and engine on (bright blue). Engine on updates include location (street address), the date and time, and how long the vehicle had been there (stop duration). Engine off updates likewise include location (street address), date and time, as well as the driving distance, duration and average speed of the trip.
Vehicle 440 left three minutes ago at 9:19 pm after having stopped (engine off) for two minutes. Also, Vehicle 006 stopped (engine off) about two hours ago.
Darrel (Repair Van 169) stopped at the University Endowment 36 minutes ago at 8:47 pm, after having driven 5 km in 13 minutes. At the same time, two others vehicles—121 and 391—parked 55 minutes ago and 12 minutes ago respectively. (Dark blue means engine off.)
All three vehicles have stopped at the end of the day (engine off).
This screenshot and the next one show us Truck 6's activity for one day. Here we see that Carlos started Truck 6 at 9:57 am.
With Simple Track, the second and last event is an engine off. Truck 6 ran for about 2 hours, and drove 26 miles. We see the start and end points of its single trip. Truck 6 may have stopped for a few minutes during those two hours, without turning the engine off, but with Simple Track, there's no way of knowing. (For this, you need Smart Track—available on miniLINK and proLINK.)
Smart Track
Smart Track adds to Simple Track reporting. Smart Track vehicles report each "short" stop and go—that is, each time the vehicle stops moving for three or more minutes (e.g., parked with engine running), as well as the next time it continues driving ("go"). Go updates (bright purple) includes location, time, and prior stop duration. This feature is always on. Stop updates (dark purple) include location, time and prior journey duration.
Henry's last activity was an engine off (dark blue) 12 days ago. Dennis stopped (dark purple) three minutes ago, which means his vehicle is running but hasn't moved in over three minutes. Sam turned his vehicle's engine off (dark blue) 43 minutes ago.
We see Truck 6's historical activity for one day—a total of eight events, beginning with Engine On at 9:57 am, followed by Stop, Go, Stop, Go, Stop, Go, and finally Engine Off. (Note: With Simple Track, all you would see are two events: Engine On, then Engine Off a couple hours later.)
After leaving home base and driving for seven minutes, Truck 6 stops at the fuel station at 10:04
Truck 6 spends eight minutes at the fuel station before resuming driving at 10:12 am.
Truck 6 takes four minutes to drive back home, arriving at 10:16 am.
At 10:39 am, after having stopped for 23 minutes (but not turning the engine off), Truck 6 resumes driving.
Truck 6 drives for 27 minutes to arrive at 401W 36 St, New York, at 11:06 am.
After parking for six minutes, Truck 6 resumes driving at 11:12 am.
Truck 6 stops at 11:34 am on Metropolitan Avenue, New York, after driving for 22 minutes.
After idling for over half an hour, Carlos turns Truck 6's engine off, having driven 26 miles since turning the truck's engine on at 9:57 am in New Jersey.
Instant Update
To see where a moving vehicle is at any time, click Instant Update, and you will see its precise location, speed and heading. You can click Instant Update as often as you like. (Note: While Instant Update is included in proLINK, the presence of Pro Track makes it less important, since vehicles automatically update their location while driving every minute or two.)
Right now Mike is driving Unit 02 Freightliner southeast at 62 mph.
At this moment, Truck 18, driven by Phil Hainzinger, is headed east-southeast at 99 kph.
Transport 27 is moving northeast at 7 kph.
Pro Track
LINK automatically reports its location, speed and heading approximately every minute or two while driving—as well as each time it stops momentarily—for example, at a stop sign or a red light.
37 seconds ago, Unit 1 reported its location where it is driving east at 24 kph.
31 seconds ago, Unit 1549 reported driving north-northwest on 20 aveunue at 53 kph.
Three out of four vehicles are driving. 23 seconds ago, Unit 10518 reported driving southeast at 33 mph. The fourth vehicle (amber marker) has been idling since four hours ago.
Three vehicles are driving east along Bolt Road, at between 43 and 49 mph.
Trip Routes
Trip Routes let you view the path a vehicle is driving (or drove) from one place to another. (The Trip Routes feature is essentially a historical view of Pro Track reporting. Each blue arrow is a Driving Update. You can click the little blue arrows to see the vehicle's speed at that place and time.)
Two days ago, Truck 7 drove southeast along Route 99 before shutting its engine off. (Pointing at each driving update marker (little blue arrow) displays the vehicle's speed at that location.)
Unit 10703's trip route when driving south-southeast a few hours ago.
Van 14's historical activity for one day, including its trip route from Starbucks to the office.
Google Maps
When viewing vehicles' current location or historical activity, you can choose between four high-quality map views: Standard, Satellite, Hybrid and Terrain.
Standard map view
Satellite map view
Hybrid map view (composite of standard and satellite)
Terrain map view (land elevation denoted by shading)
Quick Zoom
Instantly zoom-in to a vehicle's location while keeping sight of your others vehicles. Just click a vehicle marker, then click Zoom. You can likewise zoom-in and out within the minizoom window, as well as switch between normal, satellite and hybrid map modes.
Click event marker 6, then click the Zoom tab.
Click event marker 4, click the Zoom tab, then click Satellite.
Two-way Text Messaging
Send information—such as addresses, work orders, driving directions—quickly and easily from the web to the driver's cell phone. Just click a vehicle, type a message and click Send. In a few seconds, the driver receives the information as a text message on his cell phone. If he chooses to respond, the reply message will be sent to your email address.
Sending a text message to the driver of Unit 01 is simple. Just select vehicle, enter a message and click Send.
With used with other features, like Landmarks, Two-way Text Messaging provides a lot of value. Now when you see a vehicle is at a particular location, you can send the driver a message, even if he is not in the vehicle.
Just enter the message, then click Send.
The message is sent. Within seconds, the driver receives the message on his cell phone.
Instant Notify
Get up-to-the-minute updates on whatever vehicle activity is important to you. With Instant Notify, you can choose to be automatically notified via email or text message when certain activity occurs— for example, if and when a vehicle is operated off-hours, leaves a job site, speeds excessively, or idles too much. You can make as many Notify Rules as you like and specify as many recipients as you like.
Here we are making a Notify Rule to send an email and text message when any vehicle in the fleet is turned on or off outside of two user-defined areas (Bergey's Tire Center and Bridgeport Landfill), on any day, at anytime.
Landmarks
Landmarks are a way of tagging locations or areas that are important to your business. A Landmark can refer to a building address, a job site, a town, city—any area of any size. Landmarks are useful for knowing where vehicles are (or have been) in relation to business locations, such as customers, suppliers and/or unauthorized areas. With Landmarks and Instant Notify, you can easily choose to be notified when a vehicle enters or leaves a certain area at an inappropriate time—e.g., going to the bar during working hours, or driving outside the city in the evening or on the weekend. There is no limit to how many Landmarks you can make.
Because the user created a Landmark for this location, now he can see at a glance that Truck 12 had stopped at the gas station.
In this example, we clearly that the Ford F150, driven by Patrick Deler, had stopped at the HQ Storage Landmark (dark blue landmark).
After stopping at HQ Storage, the Ford 150 stopped at the Gas station (orange landmark).
Creating Landmarks is easy. For example, imagine we want to mark the area where Truck 8 had been today so that every time a vehicle is within that Landmark, it displays automatically.
To create a Landmark: Click an event marker. Click More... Click Add a landmark. Click Add.
Landmark resize handles will appear. Click-and-drag the handles to make the Landmark the desired size and shape. Enter a name for the Landmark. Choose a colour. Then click Save.
Instantly, we see the new Landmark appear, and when we click an event marker, we see the Landmark's name already included in the event.
Editing and deleting Landmarks is also easy. Just go to the Account > Landmarks page, and you will see all the Landmarks in your account.
You can edit a Landmark simply by clicking its marker, then click the pencil icon, and either resize the Landmark (by dragging the resize handles) or changing the Landmark label or colour.
Street Addressing
Vehicles report their approximate street address, in addition to precise longitude and latitude. (Note: The accuracy of street addressing reported cannot be guaranteed, since the source data used to compute the addresses is of varying quality, coming from federal, state/provincial and municipal governments.)
Vehicles' approximate street address is displayed, even in remote places.
Even remote locations' approximate street address is displayed—in this case, 17 Henry Mountain Rd, Connestee, North Carolina.
Advanced Addressing
Alberta Township System, Legal Subdivision (LSD)
This feature is useful to companies operating vehicles in rural Alberta. (If you are not familiar with the Alberta Township System and would like some background, click here). With the LSD feature turned on, when you click on a vehicle on the Map page, or view its activity on the Reports page, you will not only see its street address (Rutherford Rd SW, Edmonton, AB), but also its LSD coordinates: 15-19-051-24 W4. LSD notation also accompanies Instant Notifications.
Vehicle 2 displays not only its street address, but its Legal Subdivision (LSD) location. Clicking the Display LSD button overlays the section (dark blue) and LSD coordinates (bright blue) on the map
Speeding Alert
Vehicles report a speeding alert when they exceed a certain speed limit (which you can change). With the Instant Notify feature, you can choose to be notified automatically of speeding via email or text message.
Yesterday Unit 105, driven by Brady, reports a speeding violation at 2:40 pm—driving east at 127 kph.
The speeding violation lasts about three minutes.
Truck 12 reports speeding at 79 mph while driving northeast.
Truck 12's speeding violation lasts only eight seconds.
Get directions for drivers
If a driver is lost, you can easily get him headed in the right direction. Just click his vehicle, enter a destination, and you'll see an optimal route plotted from where he is to his destination, along with turn-by-turn directions, distance and estimated time to arrival. (You can likewise select any Landmarks you've created as a destination, then click Show.)
To get driving directions for the driver of Unit 01, click the marker, click More..., click Get driving directions, enter "Fort Lauderdale, FL" as a destination, then click Show.
Excessive Idling
The vehicle reports when it idles for too long. For example, if the engine is running and the vehicle does not move for more than 10 minutes, LINK reports Excessive Idling and begins timing the duration. Once the vehicle moves, LINK reports the duration of the excessive idling, which is visible on the Map and Reports pages. (Acceptable idling duration can be changed.) You can choose to be automatically notified of Excessive Idling via email or text message.
Vehicle Stretch1 reports excessive idling on February 15 at 5:13 am, at 8 Widmer Street, Toronto, Ontario.
After idling excessively for about three minutes, the vehicle Stretch1 resumes driving.
Smart Maintenance
The Smart Maintenance system simplifies scheduled maintenance in four ways: 1 It keeps track of vehicles' odometer and engine hours. 2 It lets you create Service Reminders (which you and/or the mechanic are emailed when service is due). 3 It predicts when service is due, making it easy to schedule regular maintenance. 4 It keeps an indelible record of service, which you can refer to at any time, to see what service has been performed, when, and at what cost. When a service interval is due, LINK automatically sends a notification email to you and/or any number of recipients (e.g., "95,000 miles: Oil change"). You can create as many Smart Maintenance reminders as you like—based on either mileage (appropriate for most vehicles) or engine hours (for heavy equipment).
The user edits a Service Interval, marks it as completed, then enters notes and invoice details before clicking Update.
Immobilizer
In the event that a vehicle is stolen, click the Immobilizer On button beneath its name. This will send an Immobilize command to LINK. Unknown to the thief, once the vehicle's ignition is switched off, it will not start again—until you click Immobilizer Off.
The user clicks Immobilizer On, preventing the vehicle from being started.
Smart Immobilizer
With Smart Immobilizer, we've made the Immobilizer feature a pro-active security feature that works automatically. Basically, you decide when and where Immobilizer On or Immobilizer Off commands will be sent automatically to vehicles—thereby determining where company vehicles can generally be used. For example, at the end of the day, you may wish to immobilize company vehicles once they are returned to a particular place. Likewise, you can choose a certain time, say, the following morning, when the vehicles will be released—employees will be able to start them normally. Anyone else attempting to start a vehicle outside of those rules will be unable to do so.
The user creates an Immobilizer Off rule that will release vehicles only at certain times on work days
Trips
The Trips report provides an easy-to-read daily report of each vehicle's activity—everywhere it went, how long it was there, plus the driving distance and duration between stops. Street addresses and matching Landmarks display automatically, making the Trip reports great for quickly viewing fleet activity. As with the other reports, you can view, download and print the Trips Report for any day or days.
Mark Chadwick (Truck 02) left home at 9:45 am, drove 5 km to Starbucks, where he stopped for six minutes, then drove 14 km to work, where he arrived at 9:59 am (two hours late, but well-caffeinated). After approximately 10 hours at work, Mark drove 19 km to a neighbourhood watering hole, where he spent 73 minutes. After a couple beers, he drove home, a 3 km trip that took 4 minutes. He arrived home at 10:19 pm. (Report generated in 0.38 seconds.)
Mileage
The Mileage report displays vehicle mileage (in KM or miles), which you can view, print and download. As with the other reports, Mileage reports are very flexible and easy to customize. To view vehicle mileage for the whole month, click Entire month. To view mileage by day, select one or several days. You can likewise select all vehicles for a comparison report, or focus on just one vehicle to view its activity in greater detail—if you select one vehicle and one day, you will see all of its activity for that day.
How much are employees driving company vehicles on the weekend? Here we selected all weekends (all Saturdays and Sundays) and one vehicle—in this case, Dennis—. We see that Dennis drove 234 km on the weekends in the month of May. Since all the weekends are already selected, it's easy to view other employees' weekend mileage for the month—just click their name. (Report generated in 0.08 seconds.)
Engine hours
The All Activity report includes engine hours, which are particularly important for companies operating heavy equipment. To view the engine hours for one or more vehicles, just click one or several days (or the entire month option), and choose one vehicle (or all vehicles). As with the other reports, the Engine Hours report generates incredibly fast—typically in less than a second. This makes comparing engine hours between different equipment fast and easy. Like all reports, the Engine Hours report is printer-friendly, and can be downloaded to Excel with one click.
The total engine hours of all vehicles and equipment for the month of July. (Report generated in 0.72 seconds.)
Landmarks
Landmarks report displays how many times and for long the vehicle was at a certain location.
Speeding
The Speeding report displays the number of times and duration that a vehicle exceeded the user-specified speed limit. You can view a summary of all vehicles' speeding violations (if any) for one day, several days or the entire month. Or you can select one vehicle and any number of days to view precise details on every speeding violation, including date, time, location, speed at time of violation, and speeding duration.
In the top screenshot, we see a summary of all vehicles' speeding violations for the entire month of July. In the summary, we see that Tony was only speeding for 38 seconds. To see when and where he was speeding, we select just his name, and then all the days in July, and in a fraction of a second the bottom report is generated, displaying the details of the three violations comprising Tony's 38 seconds of speeding. (The bottom report generated in 0.14 seconds.)
Fastest Speed of the Day
This report displays vehicles' fastest speed of the day, which may or may not be reflected in the Speeding report, since vehicles' fastest speed of the day may be below LINK's speeding threshold.
Excessive Idling
The Excessive Idling report displays detailed and summary information about vehicles' idling activity. Select one or more days, and click All vehicles, and the report will display the number of times and duration that vehicles have idled excessively. Since all vehicles idle some of the time (for example, at red lights), the Excessive Idling report only displays idling in excess of the user-specified idling limit (the default of which is five minutes)—that is, idling that is unnecessary and/or unusually long.
Truck 13 idled the most during the month of August. Monitoring excessive idling is a simple way of reducing fuel costs. (Report generated in 0.42 seconds.)
Fuel Economy
The Fuel report displays estimated fuel consumption and cost for each vehicle—a range between highway and city driving, calculated according to each vehicle's rated mileage, the distance driven, and fuel cost. (You can edit vehicle mileage ratings under Account > Vehicles.) Fuel reports, like other reports, can be downloaded to Excel with one click.
Truck 3 drove 7,676 miles during October, consuming approximately 1,535 gallons of fuel, at an average per gallon cost of $3.41, for a total cost of $5,234.72.
View in Google Earth
In addition to being able to download any report to Microsoft Excel, you can now view most (and soon all) reports in Google Earth. Just click View in Google Earth, and the report will download and automatically load into Google Earth for fast, smooth, 3D analysis. (Google Earth Pro is available as a free 7-day trial download, after which you can purchase an annual license for Google Earth Pro from Google for $400.)
We have selected the Speeding report for one vehicle, then clicked View in Google Earth.
Driving
The Driving report lets you see which vehicles are driving fastest, even if none actually exceed proLINK's built-in speed limit (130 kph or 80 mph by default). If you select one day and one vehicle, you will see a detailed report of all its driving updates. If you select more than one day and/or several vehicles, the Driving report will summarize driving activity into how many times each vehicle drove faster than the selected speed.
How many times each vehicle drove faster than 71 mph during the month of October. (This report was generated in 0.7 seconds.)
Maintenance
The Maintenance report displays the vehicle's scheduled and performed service history, as well as current odometer value.
Editing a Service Reminder (or Interval), marking it as Completed.
Seatbelt Usage
The Seatbelt report displays instances of when vehicles' are driven at least 40 kph (25 mph) for at least four minutes with the driver seatbelt unfastened. (Once the 40 kph and four minute-threshold is reached, LINK will report a "Seatbelt unfastened" alert. Once the driver's seatbelt is fastened, or the engine is turned off, LINK will report a "Seatbelt violation ended" notice, along with the seatbelt unfastened duration. There are two levels of detail with the Seatbelt report: If you select Entire month, you will see a summary report of vehicles' total seatbelt unfastened duration. Otherwise, if you choose one or several days, you will see a detailed report of each seatbelt unfastened alert. (Note: This report requires the seatbelt module, included in proLINK.)
A monthly summary of the number of times and duration that each vehicle was driven while the driver's seatbelt was unfastened. (This report was generated in less than 0.08 seconds.)
Hello, iPhone. To coincide with the release of iPhone 3G and expanded distribution, we are pleased to announce Mobile HQ: an iPhone-optimized version of our industry-leading web-based vehicle tracking system. Mobile HQ will let you track all your vehicles right on your iPhone. Mobile HQ will be free to all new and existing customers, and is expected to be available July 15, 2008. More details to follow.
