We were asked recently to provide a solution for a large mobile advertising company which wanted to be able to:
- More effectively define, document, and sell their routes to customers
- Assure their customers of the time spent driving those routes
- Alert their staff to any infractions of vehicles leaving those routes
GPS Insight now has a “Route Path Tool” which allows you to define a route, document that route, and quantify how much time and mileage was spent on that route.
I will demonstrate on my own vehicle here by running a quick “Rob” 3D Mapping History” for the past “7d” (7 days):
Here is JUST the path (the 2 minute location dots can be easily turned on for more information) :
Using that information, I can select and create a path which is “authorized” which still leaves some activity outside the official route this vehicle should travel:
The orange path (you can choose the color) is simply me clicking the major intersections in order that I want them driven by my driver. Remember we want to drive this path frequently so that our advertising on the side of the truck is seen by as many people, and certain streets (Pinnacle Peak Road, for instance) are driven more frequently in order to backtrack and to allow more people there to see your advertisement.
We save this path into GPS Insight and can display it in many colors, with a “thin to thick” and “light to dark” indicator of direction of travel/order. Additionally, we have numbered icons to tell us which order these intersections should be driven:
I have annotated the blue-lined/numbered path with white arrows to help understand the direction of travel:
Now we can run a report on whether or not my vehicle actually stayed on this path, for how many miles, hours, etc. More importantly, we can find out very easily how much time and how many miles were spent OFF the path. The distance “off path” is configurable depending on the circumstances.
I can show the map of this and circle these two “off route” trips. One was to see my son’s “Heroes” presentation at school (where they talked and sang songs about their favorite heroes), and one was taking the kids to see Iron Man at the theater last night for Ryan’s birthday (good movie, by the way).
Zooming down we can see more information and specific times for both trips to the school (dropping off in the AM and attending the presentation in the evening):
And here were the heroes on stage. They were Christopher Columbus, Sally Ride, Teddy Roosevelt, Orville & Wilbur Wright, & others:
And my hero Ryan, who portrayed Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Heroes Presentation:
You can hardly fault me for driving off-route to go see him in this school presentation, right…?
May 12th, 2008 6:32 am
Your kid looks great as Martin Luther King, Jr!
I would always drive off-route to see my kids in a play – you sound like a great dad.