This feature really helps to make sure you are saving miles/hours/dollars by streamlining your drivers’ daily route!
Before I talk about this, please realize that the routing dashlet is not a standard feature, and is included with our routing package, which is an enhancement to the base GPS Insight product. You may not have access to it currently. Call your salesperson for information.
Here is a new ability we added to the Route dashlet:
You can enter multiple addresses as always, as well as a start/stop landmark.
GPS Insight routing dashlet
Click on Optimize to get the proper order (which you can cut and paste into an email to the driver, etc.):
Click on GPS Insight's "Map This" button for optimized directions
Here is the result:
Map and directions for optimized set of destinations
You can click on print, send (email), or link (to cut/paste a direct link) at the top right for your convenience.
We will add more functionality to this dashlet over time (e.g. more landmark/landmark group inclusion, optimization options, Garmin integration, etc.).
If you would like to try it out and you are not an existing routing customer, please call us for a 14 day trial.
To learn more visit our Fleet Tracking Routing.
Thanks,
Rob.
Rob.
January 10th, 2010 1:44 am
You’re not planning to rest on your laurels for 2010, Rob, are you? This is one heck of a tool. I used to sell custom routing service with Microsoft MapPoint and I had a standing challenge no customer was ever able to successfully call me on … give me the tracks of your local service vehicles for a day or a week and if I can’t find you a proposed new routing that will save you 10% or more on mileage, the service will be free.
Especially when dealing with relatively short distance, local routing, the average person thinks they can do it just as well with personal local “common sense”, but in fact it seldom works ut that way.
My weakness was, the service could nly be “after the fact” with the systems I was working with. That’s also a distinct waekness of one of the big names in the business, ESRI’s ArcLogistics Routeâ„¢. (unless they have developed a real time link to a tracking system they didn’t have previously).
Your service beats this sort of solution, hands down … great for rapid response, send the truck to the first client location and then re-route on the fly as service calls or pick up orders come in duting the day. Neat.
January 10th, 2010 8:58 am
Thanks Dave. We are actually working on / have as part of our routing capability exactly what you’re talking about. Soon in 2010 our next version of the Driver Efficiency Report (http://support.gpsinsight.com/wiki/support/gpsi_driver_efficiency_report) will be available as an alert which lets you and/or the driver know in REAL TIME whenever their single trip is > X% or Y miles less efficient than one we determine is available.
Obviously there are lots of potential improvements on GPS Insight — 2010 will really be our best year in terms of moving forward with them (and the first 10 days so far, we’ve introduced 5 distinct enhanced/new capabilities — posted speed limit reports (will be released out of beta next week), route dashlet, dashlet map landmarks, better driver-to-vehicle mapping algorithms, and speed graphs for our speeding reports).
The roadmap for 2010 has a LOT on it.
Our strategy is to add even more functionality, keep the price consistent in 2010, if not slightly higher, and cater to customers who understand it is worth paying a premium for a premium product. If you want dots on a map at half the price, there is no shortage of low end products willing to give it away.
100% ROI on $25 a month does NOT beat 1000% ROI on $35-45 a month, as you and I (and most of our customers) both know.
Rob.