GPS Insight Blog » Routing

Sep 07 2010

Going to Vegas with some GPS Insight employees!

Category: Garmin Integration,GPS Insight Employees,GPS Navigation,Las Vegas,Routing — rdonat @ 10:26 pm

So I head out tomorrow morning to Las Vegas for the AFLA Conference (American Fleet Leasing Association), and probably won’t have much time for documenting GPS Insight in the blog.

So I have to pick up 2 GPS Insight employees tomorrow, & don’t know where they live (I won’t name names — what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas).

Easy enough — I just enter their addresses into the GPS Insight Route Dashlet on the dashboard, choosing a Start/End of my house & Sky Harbor Airport (both pre-defined landmarks in GPS Insight’s account):

How to route myself via Garmin to 2 employee homes & the Airport

Press “Get Route” and voila!

Create an optimized route to pick up employees before heading to the airport

Create and send an optimized route to my vehicle's Garmin to pick up employees and head to the airport

Now I am able to send the route named “Vegas” to my Garmin, which will have 4 sequentially numbered stops, and will take me in that order.

Also, I can always map it by pressing “Map This” and it will show the overall route, to include the time (1 hour & 10 minutes) and turn-by-directions (not that I’ll need them — that’s what the Garmin is for!):

Mapped route with a start & 3 sequential stops

Now I need to pack & get some sleep for a very busy conference full of learning and such…

Rob.

Tags: Fleet Tracking, gps fleet tracking, gps fleet tracking system, GPS Tracking, gps tracking system, gps vehicle tracking system, Vehicle Tracking

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May 01 2010

New Route Creation/Sending to Garmin capability

Category: Garmin Integration,GPSI-4000,Mapping,New Features,Routing — rdonat @ 2:10 pm

Now if you have Garmin integrated into your GPS Insight implementation, you can optimize a list of addresses or landmarks, then send that entire route via wireless to your driver’s Garmin on his or her dashboard. It’s this easy:

Route a Set of Addresses to a Garmin as well as Add Landmarks to a Route

A route made from a list of addresses, and some landmarks, can be sent to a Garmin. Using the Route Dashlet, addresses can be pasted to create a list of destinations that are not yet landmarked:

Additional destinations for the route can be added from the list of landmarks on the account:

An optimized route is then created by clicking Get Route:

The Route is sent to the specified Garmin by selecting the vehicle with an attached Garmin and clicking Send:

If you would like to look at the route, you can click on “Map This” to show it on a map and adjust/email it if necessary:

Once you “Send” the route to a Garmin, the NUMBERED stops show up with the Route Name for you to easily determine where to go and in what order. You may call them “Monday,” “Tuesday,” etc. in order to help distinguish. Note that they should not be a very long name since Garmin screens aren’t always wide enough to show the full name (as in the case with my small, inexpensive Nuvi 205).

Here are screen shots of the Garmin when it receives the route:
The “Stop” icon shows up and the Garmin “dings” to let you know you have a new stop (or multiple stops). Click on it to show your stops in numbered order:

Then, you can click on the one you want to go to (ideally in the order specified, or based on whichever one is closest to your existing location (which is shown in the right column) [note I had to edit the image since my nuvi didn't have enough space for the full number -- why you should buy a W model (which stands for widescreen)]:

After clicking on it with your finger, you get more details, and can choose to “Go” there at this point:

At that point, the Garmin will take you there with turn by turn audible and visible instructions. If you have a Traffic enabled Garmin, it will optimize for existing traffic.

Note that addresses, latitude/longitude, and Landmarks may be combined within the GPS Insight route dashlet.

This is a real time-saver and using GPS Insight to get the route order optimized will absolutely save you miles — 5-10% is reasonable, and more if your dispatcher really doesn’t have a way to visualize the order on a map.

Down the road, we will start allowing customers to save routes & compare the route SENT to the actual route DRIVEN.

Bear in mind that the GPS Insight GPSI-4000 and newly introduced GPSI-3900 are our 2 Garmin capable devices.

Click for more information on our Garmin Integration.

Rob.

Tags: dispatch, garmin integration, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, Routing

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Apr 20 2010

Why I hate Microsoft (or why resetting your Ford Sync GPS is a bad idea)

Category: Availability,California,competition,Google Earth,GPS Insight Employees,GPS Navigation,Routing — rdonat @ 10:49 pm

Obviously I am pretty dependent on GPS for just about everything when it comes to getting around [also for money...].

I have 3 GPS Navigation devices with me when I drive my car (factory installed, Garmin, & my iPhone) so I never print directions any more.

So, on the way out to Long Beach a couple weeks ago, my family and I took our 3 month old car with Ford’s/Microsoft’s “Sync” system (with GPS Navigation). No directions, just our factory installed GPS navigation unit.

Just outside of town it crashed on us. I figured out how to do a factory reset and get it back up & running.

Here’s the point: AFTER RESETTING IT, I FORGOT TO TELL IT “FASTEST” & NOT “SHORTEST” when optimizing our route. DOH!

We took the 10 out to LA area, but then it took me through some really sketchy, slow-moving areas.

On the way home, I thought about it, & realized I needed to change my GPS setting to FASTEST from SHORTEST.

I was curious how much longer it took me time-wise to get there than to get back, so I ran a 3D history report & saw very quickly that it was twice as long (60 vs. 30 minutes):

Run a week long history for our trip to/from Long Beach

Slow, direct route vs. Fast, indirect route

All I had to do is look at the 2 points where the route deviates then converges again, and compare times and distances:

Where I took a GPS dictated "dumb turn"

The times/mileages are:

Going there: 17:47 & 4571.6 miles to 18:53 & 4602.5 miles

Coming back: 10:26 4618.8 miles & 10:58 & 4656.3 miles

Doing the quick math, it took 31 miles & 66 minutes there the “short” way, & 37.5 miles & 32 minutes (half as long) the “long way.”

So to save 6.5 miles, I wasted 34 minutes of my life, praying we didn’t get car-jacked. At least if we did, I would know where the car went…

Anyway, I thought of this the other day & was curious just how much extra time it took us because of that one GPS setting on my (Factory Installed — not GPS Insight…) navigation device.

Because I track that vehicle, it took me about a minute to figure it out using GPS Insight.

Oddly enough, while I was writing this, my new Microsoft Windows 7 box crashed Google Earth as well. It knew I was badmouthing Microsoft. Sooner or later, all things Microsoft eventually crash.

I’m really glad we don’t run our systems on Microsoft products.

I just checked and our two “primary” servers which our customers rely upon (with lots of auxiliary and backup servers, of course) have been up for two years to two years & 3 months:

GPS Insight servers run for years without incident

I’m glad most of our competitors run Microsoft though…

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Navigation, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, microsoft, system availability

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Jan 23 2010

Lots of new dashboard features just released!

Category: dashboard dashlets,Garmin Integration,New Features,Routing — rdonat @ 11:25 am

We have been busy this month and released several new features to the dashboard (as well as posted speed limit reports/graphs which I will talk about separately).

First, there are new dashboard layouts, and they are more intuitively labeled:

Intuitive dashboard styles

Choosing “2 wide L” will give you a wider column on the left and a thinner column on the right. Choosing “4 wide” will give you 4 columns. These various layouts are useful depending on what type of style you like for your dashboard setup.

As always, after making changes, make sure to save your dashboard settings!

Next, we have added the ability to send routes to Garmins from the Route Dashlet.

After optimizing a route with the route dashlet (and optional feature), just choose a Garmin-integrated vehicle and click on send — the optimized route is sent instantly to that Garmin:

Send a full optimized route to a Garmin

Last, we made our “closest to” dashlet more useful by adding both drive distance and drive time, in addition to the “crow flies” distance which is all we previously supported. You can sort by any of the columns, choose your vehicle, and click on the “dispatch” button if you are using Garmin integration:

Closest To Dashlet includes drive distance/time now

And for users of the dashboard map book tool which turns an address into a map book page/grid coordinate, you can now “sanity check” the location by clicking on “Map Address” — it will pull up a convenient map for you to make sure you typed it correctly & have a reasonable address:

Sanity check your mapbook addresses now in the dashlet

And another recent dashlet worth mentioning again — the legend. Now you can have a convenient reference to what the various colors and vehicle icon shapes mean:

GPS Insight map legend

Thanks for using these new capabilities and we appreciate your feedback which has led to their creation.

Click for more information on our GPS Vehicle Tracking Functionality.

Rob.

Tags: closest to dashlet, dashboard, dashboard dashlets, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, legend, map book dashlet, new capabilities, New Features

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Jan 09 2010

New Routing Dashlet capabilities — save fuel by streamlining your drivers’ daily route!

Category: dashboard dashlets,Fuel Savings,Garmin Integration,New Features,Routing — rdonat @ 11:32 am

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.

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

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Oct 27 2009

Egypt race update

Category: Egypt,Google Earth,Miscellaneous,Routing,Running,TT-1900 — rdonat @ 10:17 pm

My Brother in Law Keir Oxley is half-way through the 162 mile long Sahara Race.

He’s in 70th place (they started with 125 and are down to 96 at this point).

Here is a shot of their route so far & all of the base camps they’ve had:

GPS Tracking in the Sahara Desert

I think our Driver Efficiency Report would have something to say about their route of choice…

Here is a screenshot of Egypt & the tiny area they’re in, which is a 75 mile trek covering 30 actual miles so far:

Tiny area of Egypt the race takes place in

And here are the rankings — Go Keir!

Racing the Planet Sahara Race standings for stage 3

Rob

Tags: gps tracking in Egypt, Keir Oxley, Racing the Planet, Sahara Race, satellite tracking in Egypt

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May 30 2009

Rob gets a speeding ticket — GPS Insight proves the speeding activity unfortunately…

Category: Arizona,cell phone capabilities,Driver Accountability,EZ-1000,Garmin Integration,Google Earth,GPS Insight Employees,GPS Navigation,GPSI-4000,Identifying and eliminating speeding,Mapping,Routing — rdonat @ 1:41 pm

So yesterday I took my 9 year old son, a friend and his son to the Diamondbacks game (they lost…). Thanks to Mike Greco at bluemedia for the tickets…

On the way home, after dealing with the 101 being closed (Arizona doesn’t know how to work on roads without closing them entirely), yours truly got pulled over 2 miles from home after punching it to make a stale yellow light. In my defense, there was no one around (except the police officer apparently, who I never saw).

Anyway, I got pulled over shortly thereafter and was informed I did 67 through the light in a 50. Oops.

I haven’t had a ticket for 15 years, so there goes that streak.

I got home shortly thereafter & guess what, he was right.

My GPSI-4000, which takes speed samples once a second, got me doing 68.

Here’s a picture which pretty much tells it all:

Here is my idle stop while receiving the ticket:

I pulled over near a community’s entrance to get over from traffic:

I brought an EZ-1000 with me for my son to hold on to at the game in case I lost him, & it was set for 10 second updates.

It got me at 67 MPH going through the light too (and shows I immediately slowed down):

So, the moral of the story is: I was speeding. It was literally for just a few seconds to catch a yellow light rather than slam on the brakes and wake the kids up (that’s my story), but both the police AND my GPSI-4000/EZ-1000 caught me. FYI, the GO-3000 is equally accurate, and our 3500 lineup checks speed every 20 seconds, so it catches speeding, just not the rapid up & down speeding like I exhibited yesterday — it got me at 62 MPH. To put it in perspective, many of our competeitors check speed once every 5 minutes and don’t report max speed — just instantaneous. We report max, instantaneous, and average, and this is detailed in several “speeding” related blog articles.

On a less depressing note, we had a nice time at the ballgame, and stopped at Alice Cooper’s Cooperstown before which we tracked on the EZ-1000. I landmarked it while I was there by sending a text message of: ‘gps rob 1000k landmark cooperstown’ so now it shows up here like this:

A quick landmark report shows we were there for 41 minutes:

41 much more worthwhile minutes than sitting on the side of the road waiting for a ticket 2 miles away from home.

I’ll let you know how traffic school works out.

Now that I think about it, had I been using my new Garmin routing capability I would have been directed to take the shorter path home after getting detoured, and would have avoided this ticket altogether… Grr…

Never mind all those other light green speeding dots where thankfully there weren’t any police or speed cameras.

Rob.

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Aug 11 2008

Our directions are better than this…

Category: GPS Navigation,Humor,Routing — rdonat @ 8:22 pm

Here is a link to the original cartoon (from my favorite, http://xkcd.com)

http://xkcd.com/461

From our 2D (or 3D) mapping, all you need to do is click “Directions: From Here” and “Directions: To Here” in the vehicle, landmark, or address “bubble” and you are given high quality directions you can email, print, or send to a phone:

Here I clicked on Brent, then on Cardinals Stadium, choosing From/To for each:

You can turn on Traffic and “Drag” the route around bad areas (red):

Then finally, if you want to see what the area looks like with a “street map” you can click on the camera icon (this image shows Cardinal’s Stadium):

Or maybe it will show a spectral wolf.

We just added this support to Firefox and Internet Explorer versions 6 & 7, please try it out.

Thanks,

Rob.

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

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May 10 2008

Route Compliance Techniques

Category: CUSTOM APPLICATIONS OF GPS INSIGHT,Driver Accountability,Google Earth,GPS Tracking,Mapping,Routing — rdonat @ 1:26 pm

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):