GPS Insight Blog » Mapping

Aug 30 2010

New shapes and color coded vehicles in mobile mapping

Category: New Features, cell phone capabilities, mobile mapping — rdonat @ 5:19 pm

GPS Insight includes the ability to group vehicles and assign shapes to them, and also color-codes them based on what their activity is.

Now that works on most mobile mapping platforms – but NOT on the iPhone, which isn’t up to date yet

Additionally, we reduced the length of the URL you need to type (once) to get to your vehicles on GPS Insight on your smart phone.

Here are some screenshots:

Here is a list of your vehicles — scroll and choose one to drill down to see it on the map:

New Shapes, Colors, and Directional Arrows in Mobile Maps

Viewing many vehicles, most stopped > 1 hour (red) at GPS Insight headquarters. No idea what Google thinks “House Hangout” is.

Lots of stopped vehicles at GPS Insight Headquarters

Note that now we show the direction of travel on the phone as well with an arrow:

One moving up in Seattle

Clicking through gives more information:

Detailed information about a vehicle

If you are a GPS Insight user, here is how you access the administration area to create your unique URL which you can then use to see current locations of your vehicles on your phone running Google Mobile Maps (most phones):

GPS Insight Mobile Map Administration

Enjoy!

Rob.

Tags: Fleet Tracking, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, mobile mapping, Vehicle Tracking

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Aug 21 2010

$90 Parking Ticket is proven ridiculous (but we still have to pay it)

Category: Arizona, Driver Accountability, GPS Insight Employees, Google Earth — rdonat @ 1:10 pm

One of our employees who drives our GPS Insight Scion in a car pool took it Saturday morning to a remote area of the desert to go for a run.

He parked off the road, on a pull-out which was nowhere near where cars drive.

He came back to this $90 parking ticket (with my name on it since it’s my car officially…):

$90 ridiculous parking ticket

So here’s how you prove that Maricopa County Sheriff’s are scrounging around for money for our broke County, using GPS Insight:

Quickly run a 3D vehicle history for the Scion for that day

Open the “Time Slider” to the first trip of the day & show just the dots (green) on the map corresponding to the drive to the first stop and 45 minute stop (yellow):

History shows the drive to go to an early AM run

Then Zoom down & see the vehicle was parked off the road itself:

Parking off the road yields a $90 ticket

Then go to Street View mode & see that it’s a paved pull-off. Why wouldn’t it be ok to park there to go for a run/ride/hike?

Did they pave it just to lure people in to give them $90 parking tickets? Thanks Deputy Thompson.

Street View shows this is nowhere near the road

I’ve paid it since it’s got my name on it, but I will definitely send a copy of the blog article to the Judge & see if we can get it refunded.

How ridiculous, though.

Even though politics and a County with financial issues trumps GPS evidence sometimes, at least you can clear the suspicion that your driver did the wrong thing.

Also, using our DriverID, you know which driver was in the vehicle at the time of the ticket so you know who to talk with, if the original got “lost.”

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking

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Aug 11 2010

Was that my employee that just drove by…? (or my wife?…)

Category: Arizona, GPS Insight Employees, cell phone capabilities, mobile mapping — rdonat @ 10:26 pm

My wife loves the fact that she’s a guinea pig and has a GPS tracking device in her car… (not really)

But it comes in handy really often to know where she & the kids are. This article shows how quick and convenient it is to use GPS Insight to answer real questions in a useful way, daily.

I was heading out of the office, waiting at the light to head to the store, and a car that looked like hers drove by toward our home. All the cars in Scottsdale look the same and all the windows are tinted, and we don’t have a vanity license plate I can remember (which probably is the way to know it’s my car…). I wasn’t sure if it was her heading home from somewhere or just one of the other thousand SUV’s in town.

I thought maybe she would want to turn around and grab dinner with the kids where I was going.

But I didn’t know if it was her car or not, so I pulled out my iPhone & checked the map of all our vehicles.

Within seconds, I knew it was her, thanks to the GPS Insight fleet tracking product.

Here’s how I did it in 10 seconds:

I simply refreshed the link for GPS Insight’s “Mobile Maps” then “zoomed down” to my location using the “zoom to me” button (I don’t know what it’s called, but I have an arrow pointing to it below). Clicking on the vehicle just North of the intersection shows it’s my wife’s vehicle (Nav2):

Quick map tells me it was my wife (Nav2) who just drove by

Then just to show I’m really at the light waiting to turn left, I click on the pin there (I have 2 devices in my car so both are me):

Me at the light waiting to turn left

Then I can show where the cars & the office are using Google Maps’ street view (by pressing the little orange guy shown above):

Google mobile Maps shows the intersection where I'm sitting, etc.

This isn’t life & death or even business, but gives a good illustration of how fast you can answer questions about where people are at (or perhaps which of your techs just blew a red light in front of you a second ago).

10 seconds, and you’ve got your answer.

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, iPhone map, mobile mapping

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Jul 18 2010

Always making things better

Category: Alerts, GPS Insight Employees, Google Earth, Mapping — rdonat @ 3:10 pm

After our new “Late Arrival Alert” was launched last week, we got some feedback & changed it a bit to make it easier to read. The time it SHOULD HAVE TAKEN is now shown (e.g. “…taken less than 6 min.” in this alert).

new alert additions

Additionally, a map is now shown for the start/end points which generated the alert, so you can easily see the context of the alert. We embed maps in all location-based alerts (e.g. odd-hours, speeding, etc.).

This alert was generated because I took 18 minutes getting from my house to the office today, since I took “the long way” to stop by and pick up something at a convenience store.

This caused me to take 18 minutes vs. 6 to make it the 4.5 miles to the office from my home, and trip this alert.

Here’s a map of the “out of the way” route I took to get to work today (just to get a few things done before I head out of town for the week):

extra stop at a convenience store

You can see the way the red line starts “thin and light” and gets “thick and dark” with the direction of travel, which makes it easy to see the activity at a glance. I clicked on the yellow “pin” which shows all stops less than 60 minutes. It shows I stopped for 1 minute.

The red pin down at the bottom is my car stopped for > 1 hour.

It’s Sunday & I’m heading home now to hop in the pool & get ready for my trip, but wanted to show off this new alert functionality first.

By the way, here are the 2 alerts I got which now are “obsoleted” by this alert — I had one for every time I enter/exit either home or work — now I can see ONLY when I get to work when it’s too long of a trip. (not that I really need to track myself — it just makes for good examples when showing our functionality to customers):

RobHouse & GPS Insight Headquarters arrival alerts

Rob.

Tags: dashboard dashlets, fleet tracking software, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking

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Jun 28 2010

iPad app coming soon

Category: Mapping, New Features, cell phone capabilities, mobile mapping — rdonat @ 12:47 pm

Although our iPhone app works, the iPad gives us many more capabilities, so we will be developing an app for it soon. In the meantime, search the app store for “GPS Insight” and download it for free.

The first screenshot for the iPad app is shown below:

GPS Insight iPad App coming soon

There is a lot of potential for this app, so please let us know what would be convenient for you, and we will make sure to consider it for inclusion.

Thanks,

Rob.

Tags: App, gps fleet tracking, GPS Insight iPad App, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, ipad, mobile mapping

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Jun 26 2010

New Mapping and Dashlet Features for Touch-pad Devices (e.g. iPad, iPhone)

Category: Dashboard Maps, Mapping, New Features, dashboard dashlets, mobile mapping — bbarker @ 1:29 pm

We have new Mapping and Dashlet functionality for users of touch-pad devices such as the iPad and iPhone.

Touchpad clients such as the iPad and iPhone do not allow the same “drag and drop” or “pan” capabilities as a mouse and a browser, so we had to make a few additions.

The new scroll arrows allow you to easily move through a Mapping Dashlet. Clicking the middle square button will zoom to fit the vehicles on the map, or vehicle/group that is shown within that map (such as the “WEST” group here):

New Scroll Arrows

We added a new arrow “popup” which allows you to move Dashlets around within your dashboard. Click up, down, left, or right and the Dashlet will move accordingly. To access this feature just click on the icon. Then to close it, click that icon again.

New Arrow Popup

Here is an example of the new navigational features on an iPhone:

New Features on an iPhone

Bear in mind that on an iPhone, the main product is functional, but you will need to zoom/pan around since the resolution is pretty small. On an iPad you will still need to zoom a bit in order to ensure your finger “clicks” the appropriate icons/vehicles, etc.

We also added a new feature to the Dashlet Dock, called “Add-Dashlet”. You will now notice a plus sign (+) to the right of each Dashlet name. Clicking the plus sign will load the Dashlet. Originally, to add a new Dashlet you would have to drag and drop. Now both options are available.

Dashlet Dock with new "Add-Dashlet" functionality

These new features are available to everyone, but were added specifically for touch-pad users. If you have a suggestion for a new feature or for a specific device, please let us know.

Thanks,

Rob.

Tags: dashlet, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, ipad, iphone, Mapping

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Jun 24 2010

New “Hide Vehicle Label” on Dashlet Maps

Category: Dashboard Maps, Fleet Tracking, GPS Tracking, Vehicle Tracking, dashboard dashlets — bbarker @ 9:50 am

We now offer a new option to “hide” Vehicle Labels on all Dashlet Maps. Simply open the Dashlet edit settings by clicking on the pencil icon, find “Vehicle Labels” and then choose “None” from the drop-down menu. By utilizing this new option, you can avoid extra clutter on the map, especially when viewing a large number of vehicles.

Select "None" from the Vehicle Labels drop-down menu

Below are examples of the same mapping Dashlets with and without labels:

Following Vehicle Dashlet

Mapping Dashlet displaying large number of Vehicles

Mapping Dashlet displaying specific Vehicle Group

We also allow the vehicle icons to be clicked, which will then open up an information box. To remove the box, just click on it.

Click on Vehicle icon for information box

Vehicle information box

This new feature went from “customer request” to “in production” in just seven days! Always feel free to give us a call if you have a suggestion for a new feature by calling 866-477-4321.

Thanks,

Rob.

Tags: dashlet, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, Mapping, vehicle label

Comments (1)

Jun 12 2010

New iPhone App for GPS Insight is available on the App store!

Category: Mapping, New Features, cell phone capabilities, mobile mapping — rdonat @ 3:04 pm

We have finally received “approval” from Apple so our new iPhone app (version 1) is available to anyone with an iPhone running OS version 3.1.3 here:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gps-insight/id376128487?mt=8

Here are some screen shots: Bear in mind you’ll need your login & password to make this work for your account.

See lists of your vehicles with colors to represent their status

Pick a single vehicle to see details about it

Use our "Quick View" to see only the vehicles need to right then

Then show them on a map & zoom down/use Satellite Mode

This is just the first version of the app, and we have much more planned for both iPhone and iPad (as well as Android and Blackberry, depending on customer requests).

Please download and play around with it for your account. It is a free app.

Be sure to give us a good rating!

Thanks,

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Insight iPhone App, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, iphone, mobile mapping

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May 24 2010

GPS Insight works in an iPad (and iPhone/iPod Touch too…)

Category: Mapping, New Features — rdonat @ 10:21 pm

I finally received my 3G iPads today for myself & a few developers (and my wife…). The iPad is VERY cool. I’ll still stick to my Kindle for reading (minimally my constant emails will distract me from the Kindle App), but everything else will be iPad.

Using GPS Insight on the iPad works pretty well.

Here are a few screen shots:

GPS Insight dashboard, reports, maps, & landmark creation screens on the iPad

The dashboard allows you to run reports, click to zoom into specific vehicles, minimize and delete dashlets, as well as edit properties:

GPS Insight dashboard on an iPad

Edit dashlet properties within GPS Insight on an iPad

Running and clicking through reports, creating landmarks, and several other capabilities are all supported natively.

Right now you can’t add or move dashlets, since that requires a “drag” action which isn’t really available on a touchscreen Apple device.

So we will add functionality to allow customers to do that — a simple click event on the available dashlets, as well as arrow buttons on each dashlet and map will help to fix that limitation of these devices.

I’m not sure how many of our customers use iPads (we’ve had several requests for support though). They should be happy once this is complete (maybe by the end of this week).

We also have an iPhone App which is installable through iTunes — we haven’t gotten it on the App Store yet, but it’s a simple install if you want to contact us for a copy.

Here are a couple more screenshots of GPS Insight on the iPad (note this vehicle is parked slightly outside the landmark — easy to adjust though, with or without an iPad):

GPS Insight mapping on the iPad

Editing a complex landmark within GPS Insight on the iPad

Let us know how you like using the iPad within GPS Insight.

One tip: set up your dashboards in advance, then choose between them on the iPad — it’s easy to pull up several saved dashboards.

Thanks,

Rob.

Tags: apple, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking system, ipad, iphone, ipod

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May 18 2010

Sneak peek at our new Trip Efficiency Report!

Category: Alerts, Company Efficiency, Driver Accountability, Extreme Return on Investment, Fuel Savings, GPS Insight Employees, Google Earth, Reporting, Reports, detecting unauthorized vehicle usage — rdonat @ 10:21 pm

This is a REALLY exciting report, and is the culmination of months of work on top of years of getting ready for this report.

>>> REALLY — It’s A BIG DEAL <<<

This suite of reports will essentially pinpoint your inefficient drivers on an overall as well as a trip-by-trip basis.

Here’s a an early version (the final reports are on the way & will also include an overall vehicle-by-vehicle comparison/summary):

Run the Efficiency Summary Report:

New GPS Insight Trip Efficiency Report

Up comes a graph showing all your drivers’ trips for that period of time (a work week in this case) & how efficient they are relative to both SHORTEST and FASTEST routes which we determine WOULD HAVE BEEN IDEAL:

GPS Insight Trip Efficiency Graph

Then looking at the detail, we pick on the top “most inefficient” driver (sorting on # of unnecessary miles beyond the fastest route from A to B):

GPS Insight Trip Efficiency Detail

Then hovering over an entry, it tells us that the “James – Garmin” vehicle went 34.2 miles, but only needed to go 19.03.

Difference between actual and ideal fastest route

By clicking on the 3 entries, we instantly pull up the actual (pink), shortest (red), and fastest (blue) routes for a visual comparison:

Visual Representation of Driver Inefficiency

In reality, the “turnaround” out of the way is where several of our employees meet to car pool every day:

Reason for inefficient driving is a carpool drop-off

So this behavior is all right, since it saves a lot of miles and cars on the road.

But look at #2 and #3 on the list (and there are countless more inefficient trips):

Driving way out of way (in Purple) to get from A to B

Driving way out of way (in Orange ) to get from A to B vs. fastest/shortest routes in blue & red

These are our employees & our own cars, so it’s not exactly the end of the world that we’re sometimes driving all over the place inefficiently, & we have our reasons.

But if you run this against your fleet, you will find drivers who:

Get Lost
Make Wrong Turns
Intentionally Take the Long Way (padding hours)
Literally Drive In Circles (and should be probably be fired for fraudulent wasting of fuel/mileage and padding of hours)

This report will be available in late May, and is going to surprise a lot of customers. And probably a lot of drivers too.

It will save our customers a HUGE amount of money on drivers they didn’t know were this inefficient, or were specifically defrauding them of labor hours.

Additionally, it will be available in June as a real-time alert to supervisors as well as drivers to “coach” them on better ways to complete their trips when they do so inefficiently.

Oh, and by the way, on a slow development server, for all 50 of our vehicles for a full work week, that report only took 1/3 of a second to run:

FAST (.36 second) Report

Look forward to it soon!

For more information on our main GPS Fleet Tracking Reports visit our website.

Thanks,

Rob.

Tags: fleet tracking comapnies, gps fleet reporting, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps tracking reports, gps vehicle tracking

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