GPS Insight Blog » mobile mapping

Aug 06 2011

Waiting (shortly…) for the Trolley in Branson MO in 111 degree heat!

Category: cell phone capabilities,GPS Insight Employees,mobile mapping — rdonat @ 8:53 am

So I didn’t want to wait very long in the 111 degree humid, sunny, disgusting weather for the Branson Trolley (which we happen to track using GPS Insight). so I pulled up their location on my phone and was able to wait inside Bass Pro Shop (stop #3) until it was close, then go out and get on:

Waiting for the Branson Trolley

I had some pictures of it closer on the map, and of my kids and I waiting as it pulled up, along with the stops map. I deleted them rather than sending them from my iPhone. One wrong push… You’ll just have to trust me.

Anyway, it’s nice to have GPS tracking on public transportation vehicles and be able to pull them up on Smart Phones. I’m not sure if Branson makes this available or not. They should, & we will let them know about that capability so they can advertise it to their riders.

They claim the trolley makes it around all stops every 15 minutes. I may investigate that and make that a future blog article. With the kind of traffic I experienced in Branson (worse than LA !!!), I am not sure I believe that claim. We’ll see, and GPS Insight has all the data to prove (or disprove) that claim.

Rob.

Tags: branson, Fleet Tracking, gps fleet tracking solution, GPS Tracking, mobile fleet tracking, mobile mapping, trolley tracking, truck tracking, vehicle tracking system

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Aug 06 2011

GPS Tracking (and using) the Branson MO “Downtown Trolleys”

Category: cell phone capabilities,GPS Insight Employees,Miscellaneous,mobile mapping — rdonat @ 8:38 am

I am on a Summer trip with my 2 boys for their vacation to Branson, MO. It’s like Disneyland for kids in the Ozarks in Missouri.

As we were getting onto the Trolley which shuttles you around “Old Town” Branson, I realized they were a customer of GPS Insight’s, and asked a support person to send me the GPS Mobile Map link to their vehicles so I could “track myself” and see how close the trolley was later when it was time to get back on. [Mobile Mapping is a free capability within GPS Insight under the "Mapping/Mobile Mapping" menu. You just need to retrieve the unique, secure link and you can view your vehicles from any smart phone or tablet]

Here is a picture of the boys on the Trolley:

My boys on the Branson Downtown Trolley

So within a minute or so my support person was able to text me the link to use from my smartphone to see the Trolley position:

Where the Trolley is according to GPS Insight

Where the Trolley is according to GPS Tracking

Then quickly I clicked on Street View to see where Google thinks it looks like out my Trolley Window:

Google street View from Trolley Location

And quickly I took a picture with my iPhone to show it was EXACTLY like that at the moment:

Actual picture I took from the Trolley window

Not bad, Google (or GPS Insight)!

The Branson "Downtown Trolley"

I got off at the Bass Pro Shop stop so my kids could look around in advance of their big fishing trip the next morning. I’ll talk about how I was able to minimize my wait for the Trolley (it was 111 degrees and HUMID) in the next article.

I’m glad we’re able to help Branson with their GPS tracking initiative. Great town to visit with your family. For more information click here!

Thanks,

Rob.

Tags: branson, business vehicle tracking, car tracking, commercial vehicle tracking, Fleet Tracking, fleet tracking device, fleet tracking software, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps tracking devices, mobile mapping, trolley tracking, truck tracking, vacation, Vehicle Tracking

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Oct 02 2010

How to use Cell-Based GPS Insight capabilities

Category: cell phone capabilities,dashboard dashlets,mobile mapping,New Features — rdonat @ 1:16 pm

GPS Insight’s cell-based capabilities are now a part of our baseline offering for customers.

There are 3 capabilities:

Cell Phone Maps (Mobile Mapping)
SMS Messaging (to and from Dispatch)
SMS Queries (using a text message to do things with your fleet)

Here are VERY basic overviews, followed by 3 more detailed instructional links.

These are very powerful capabilities within GPS Insight, and we want to ensure all of our customers know to use them.

Cell Phone Maps:

Set up a link which you can input (once) into your Smart Phone (e.g. iPhone, Android, etc.) and you can see your vehicles or just a group of them on the phone map (you may need to load Google Mobile Maps first):

Mobile Mapping in GPS Insight

For detailed instructions, click here.

SMS Text Messaging (free access limited to 50 messages per vehicle per month, aggregated — for more, speak to your salesperson)

You can set up associations between your vehicles/drivers and their cell phone numbers.

Then you can text your drivers and receive their response from within GPS Insight’s interface:

Use GPS Insight to send and receive messages between drivers and dispatch

For detailed information, click here: Bear in mind there is also a messaging page under “Custom/Messaging.” There is also a training topic at http://training.gpsinsight.com.

SMS Queries [free access limited to 50 messages per vehicle per month, aggregated]:

Last, you can send text messages from your phone to find out a vehicle’s location, see which vehicles are closest to others, set movement alerts, create landmarks, and much more:

Use SMS text to find manage your fleet

For basic and detailed capabilities and instructions, click here and here.

Please start using these capabilities, as they are now included with the basic GPS Insight offering.

Thanks,
Rob.

Tags: cell phone maps, Fleet Tracking, GPS Tracking, mobile mapping, SMS Queries, SMS text messaging, Vehicle Tracking

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Sep 23 2010

New improved Fleet Tracking iPhone App coming soon

Category: cell phone capabilities,Fleet Tracking,Garmin Integration,Garmin Messaging,mobile mapping,New Features — rdonat @ 10:45 pm

We’re putting the final touches on our new Fleet Tracking iPhone App which will be available free to all GPS Insight users.

Here are some highlights of improvements to the first version:

First choose a group (in this case we’ve chosen ALL VEHICLES) and then choose a vehicle [we'll choose "Ray" who is at a landmark named "BowlingAlley" -- landmark names can be turned off as a setting and addresses will show up instead]

Color coded list of vehicles (color indicates recent activity)

Once we choose “Ray” we see the following status on a map:

Close up of Ray in hybrid map mode

The icons on the bottom let you change map mode, zoom in/out, create a landmark, or zoom to your own location using the iPhone GPS.

Clicking on the pin’s blue “>” we get more information about Ray:

Information about the "Ray" vehicle to include setting alerts

From here we can “bookmark” Ray, call Ray (using his cell phone information within GPS Insight), or open his location in Google Mobile Maps on the iPhone itself [to get directions to, check street view, etc.]

Here we click the phone icon and can either SMS text message or call Ray directly:

Call or text your drivers from within the GPS Insight iPhone App

You can easily click (“press”) here to open the vehicle’s location within Google Mobile Maps:

Open a vehicle's location within Google Maps in GPS Insight's Vehicle Tracking iPhone App

And really cool, if the vehicle has a Garmin, you can send a message to that Garmin instantly using the Fleet Tracking iPhone App:

Send a message to any vehicle's attached Garmin with the GPS Insight App

Send a message to any vehicle's attached Garmin with the Fleet Tracking App

We will get the final version of the app onto the Apple App Store sometime in early October.

It’s free, and you will be able to search for it in the “App Store” or go here for information: (click below to go there)

Where to go in GPS Insight to find information on the iPhone App

We plan to continue improving this application for all of our customers’ use — enjoy!

Rob

Tags: Fleet Tracking, fleet tracking systems, GPS Insight iPhone App, GPS Tracking, gps tracking system, iPhone App, mobile, mobile mapping, Vehicle Tracking

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Aug 30 2010

New shapes and color coded vehicles in mobile mapping

Category: cell phone capabilities,Ease of use,mobile mapping,New Features — 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 11 2010

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

Category: Arizona,cell phone capabilities,GPS Insight Employees,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

Comments (1)

Jun 28 2010

iPad app coming soon

Category: cell phone capabilities,Mapping,mobile mapping,New Features — 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

Comments (0)

Jun 12 2010

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

Category: cell phone capabilities,Mapping,mobile mapping,New Features — 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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