hinking of signing up for fleet tracking for your business or getting a car tracking device installed? Here’s what you can expect if you’re signing up in South Africa.
Getting a car tracking device or signing up for fleet tracking can be life-changing. Not only can these give you peace of mind, but tracking solutions can make a business run at an optimised level you never thought possible before. Find out why you might want to sign up for car tracking and fleet tracking and what you can expect from each.
Why Sign Up for Car Tracking?
There are numerous reasons why a vehicle tracking device is a good idea. Depending on the type you get, you can use it for several purposes, from knowing where your vehicles are at all times, to helping you become a better driver.
Vehicle Tracking
In South Africa in 2021/2022, Stats SA estimated that 42,000 households experienced motor vehicle theft. Car theft is rife, and if you don’t have a tracking device in your car, you’ll never see it again if it’s stolen. Knowing where your car is—or having a reliable vehicle tracking partner that knows—is essential because, eventually, your car is bound to be a part of those statistics.
Telematics
Vehicle trackers these days can do more than just know vehicle locations; it can track how well you drive and give you pointers on how to drive better through tech like a mobile app and ai-powered cameras. There are a wide range of factors that can be tracked, but the main ones include:
- Understanding when you are harsh braking – this can help you improve the longevity of your car.
- Idle hours to let you know if your vehicles are idling too long – this can help reduce maintenance costs.
- How often you exceed the speed limit and when – this can increase driver and vehicle safety and reduce accidents.
- If you take corners too quickly – this can protect you from third-party claims due to accidents caused by yourself also improve your vehicle longevity.
- If your acceleration is too harsh – this has similar benefits to tracking cornering habits.
- Routes – tracking routes taken compared to time and fuel spent can help you find more efficient routes when route planning and help you choose those that are faster, safer, include less idle time, and expose you to fewer risks.
Tracking these all goes towards improving driver safety and vehicle longevity. Imagine if every driver on the road had access to telematics and the data to improve how they drive. It could potentially have a huge impact on reducing road accidents. More than that, it can help reduce the fuel cost and maintenance cost per vehicle, which can easily become a substantial saving for fleets.
What to Expect When I Buy a GPS Tracker?
You can expect to have the way you drive change forever—in a good way—when you get one of the reputable vehicle tracking solutions available in South Africa. With telematics, not only will your driving improve, but you can expect your fuel consumption to go down with less harsh braking and acceleration. You can also expect your tracking company to be able to recover your vehicle—just make sure you go with a reputable one.
Why Sign up For Fleet Tracking?
Fleet management is a stressful job, so having a holistic fleet management solution can help to reduce the pressure you face as a fleet manager. A good fleet tracking solution can benefit fleet owners and companies and usually also include a car tracker for each vehicle.
You can track your vehicles with real-time data using telematics and GPS tracking. New generation fleet tracking services can completely optimise the entire fleet management system, delivering trip reports and user-friendly dashboards on mobile devices. Let’s look at some of the ways this works.
- GPS tracking: Know where all of your vehicles are at all times. If they’re stolen or travel outside a specified area, you’ll be notified immediately and can work on getting them back or ensuring your driver gets back on the correct route. If you choose a passive tracking solution for your fleet tracking systems, this benefit may not be real time but may need to be activated once a vehicle goes missing.
- Telematics: Understand in real time if your drivers are driving responsibly and obeying the laws of the road. You can communicate with them and advise them to stop certain behaviours and to start others for vehicle and driver safety. It can also inform driver training programs.
- Dash cams: Record what’s going on inside and outside the cabin to protect you from liability should your vehicle be involved in an accident. You can also monitor what your drivers are doing and see if they’re getting distracted while driving.
- AI: A lot of fleet tracking tech comes with built-in AI, such as dash cams. These can alert drivers then and there if they’re showing signs of fatigue or distraction with a sound or a haptic notification (this could be something like a vibration). AI can also be used to determine if there’s bad weather or a car accident that’s slowing down traffic and advise you to try another route. This can improve or maintain delivery times and help to keep drivers safe. And because AI learns, it can optimise all of your routes for the future by analysing current routes and hazards along them.
What to Expect with Fleet Tracking and Telematics Technology?
You can expect your entire fleet and the way you manage it to change and give you more peace of mind. You can help your drivers that need extra coaching to work better, having an understanding of how they drive through telematics, dash cams, and AI.
You can also expect large amounts of data to help inform the decisions you make about what vehicles to use, which routes to take, when to take them, and so on. Basically, expect more than you ever thought you could do with your fleet. Expect more savings on costs, an increased recovery rate of stolen vehicles, improved driver performance, and a better bottom line for business owners.
Connect With a Fleet and Car Tracker Today
If you’re interested in tracking your car or your fleet, we can help put you in touch with a reputable company. Simply fill in our contact form and we’ll match you up with one of our partners who’ll be in touch. Try it today!
