GPS is an interesting technology with a wide variety of commercial purposes. While we’re mostly familiar with GPS in our phones or cars for map guidance, the usefulness of GPS extends to even broader purposes for business, perhaps most notably logistics and shipping companies.
In this article, we’re going to explore the various applications of GPS technology as it relates to broader commercial purposes, particularly in the shipping and trucking industries.
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GPS Tracking for Fleet Management
Inventory tracking has always been a primary battle for the shipping and logistics industry. From an overseas factory to a cargo ship, to unloading docks and delivery trucks, items need to be accounted for across thousands of miles of journey.
A GPS tracking system for trucks can be easily and widely deployed in a fleet. Being able to track fleets down to the individual trucks serves many useful purposes, such as route management, hour tracking, and recovering stolen vehicles.
For customer-facing portals such as shipment tracking, GPS gives the customers real-time data on their deliveries whereabouts, right down to driver’s locations and ETA of package delivery. For management-facing portals, they’re able to make sure drivers are operating within guidelines, and many GPS systems for trucks are now tied to driver logs, which cuts down a lot of manpower spent on paperwork.
For individual package tracking though, code-scanning is still a preferred method for warehouse inventory tracking in smaller couriers. However, larger postal companies like FedEx have adopted RFID asset tracking, which is able to track individual parcels when integrated with GPS.
Are Drones the Future of Light Parcel Delivery?
Delivery drones stand to disrupt the courier trucking industry in a major way, though it won’t be as dramatic as one might expect. It’s often proposed that fleets of delivery drones can do the bulk of parcel delivery in the future, but there are a lot of legal and technological hurdles to overcome.
The legal hurdles are mainly in the realms of aviation law, but technological hurdles are the reality of drones replacing courier trucks. It would require a very large fleet of drones making short, single-parcel trips to local residents, for starters.
GPS plays a major role in creating a sustainable, automated delivery industry, as it will be used in self-driving trucks. In a fully automated system, dock workers who unload shipments can also be replaced by robotic technology. The primary concern in society becomes worker displacement, if this route is fully traveled down.
How does GPS Tracking Benefit Fleet Managers?
While GPS is highly advantageous for location tracking, it also serves numerous purposes when integrated with other systems. Vehicle management software can be used to track idle time, cruising speed, deployment of brakes, and even remotely disabling the engine.
This improves security and safety for management, cutting down significantly on drivers taking road risks, or manipulating log data during inspections.
But it isn’t entirely a “Big Brother” approach to managing drivers either, as there are numerous benefits to them as well. Advanced GPS software can create optimized routes, providing much better logistics and planning options to dispatch managers.
As an example, platforms like Google Maps are useful for A to B route planning, but not for complex, multi-stop route planning with a fleet of vehicles. A delivery drivers route needs to take into consideration the closest drop-offs, and work within a set number of hours to meet quotas.
With data analytics and machine learning, route management software can predict the best routes for each driver based on multiple criteria.
This also saves considerably in fuel costs, as time spent on the road is decreased. Fuel costs are a significant part of budget planning for trucking companies, and being able to accurately predict costs and increase savings goes a long way.
