placeholder

Vehicle Tracking System

Keep track of your fleet and stay informed about its performance with Shell's vehicle tracking system. Make informed decisions with your new data source.

Discover Shell GPS tracking solutions for fleet managers

A vehicle tracking system can be an invaluable tool for fleet managers, allowing you to know exactly where every vehicle in your fleet is located at any given time. However, beyond this, such a system can also provide valuable insights about driver behavior and the condition of your vehicles, and alerts may also be able to be set up, drawing attention to specific events. All of this makes both vehicle and driver management much more simple.

Shell provides a GPS fleet tracking system as part of our Shell Telematics fleet solutions. In the sections below, you can find out more about how GPS tracking actually works, the benefits of having a high-quality tracking system in place, what our vehicle tracking system can offer in terms of insights and data, and much more.

Vehicle tracking system

Shell's Vehicle Tracking System can be used to gain accurate real-time information about the location of drivers and vehicles within your fleet. The fleet tracking system provides a number of key features:

  • Live vehicle location map: Access a live map showing the real-time positions of every vehicle in your fleet. Locations can be tracked using satellite view, while Google Street View is also available to better understand those locations. Up-to-date traffic information can also be accessed, allowing for route optimization.
  • Full journey history: Review all previous journeys made by your fleet. The information available here includes the date of the journey, the total drive time, the start and finish times, the total distance traveled, and the start and finish locations. As a result, each and every journey can be reviewed and analyzed.
  • Online portal/app: Our online portal will provide you with around-the-clock access to real-time and historic vehicle activity data. You will also be able to use our mobile app, available on Android and iOS, to check live map data and journey histories. Both services are available on a 24/7 basis.
  • Driver/vehicle management: The information available to fleet managers should allow for the careful management of drivers. Rewards or ratings can be allocated to drivers based on factors like idle time, speeding incidents, and other behaviors. Meanwhile, you can also receive fuel efficiency reports and maintenance alerts.

Benefits of fleet tracking

Equipped with an understanding of what a GPS fleet tracking system can offer, it is worth taking some time to cover the advantages of actually using one. In the sections below, you can learn about five key benefits:

  • Swiftly access vehicle location data

    Perhaps the most immediately obvious benefit associated with having a comprehensive vehicle tracking system in place is the ability to swiftly access vehicle location data. This means that at any given time, you will be able to know precisely where the various vehicles in your fleet are located and their current status.

    This information can be essential for fleet management because it allows for more evidence-based decision-making. Tracking vehicle locations can also be vital for crisis resolution purposes. For instance, if a vehicle breaks down, knowing vehicle positions can help fleet managers to send the most appropriately located replacement vehicle.

  • Keep your customers up-to-date

    Keeping tabs on vehicle locations can also assist greatly with the quality of customer service by allowing you to keep your customers fully up-to-date on when they can expect a vehicle to arrive. This is an essential tool within many business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) companies.

    Modern customers can have high expectations in terms of delivery tracking and receiving accurate updates. If you are able to reliably track the vehicles in your fleet and if you can understand their position in relation to their destination, you are going to have the tools required to live up to these customer expectations.

  • Tailor training and coaching activities

    Tracking vehicles can also empower fleet managers when it comes to training and coaching activities because GPS tracking can provide useful insights into the behavior of drivers. This can include everything from identifying speeding to understanding poor practices when it comes to acceleration, braking, and fuel consumption.

    Training and coaching activities become much more effective if they are able to be tailored to individuals. Monitoring driver behavior through GPS tracking opens up the potential to provide very specific feedback to drivers and allows fleet managers to work with their teams to improve their habits with a view to lowering overall fuel usage.

  • Boost productivity and optimize routes

    Continuous tracking of vehicle locations and journeys can also help businesses to boost overall productivity and optimize the routes that are traveled. This means that the length and complexity of journeys can be kept to a minimum, and more work can be squeezed into the typical working days of your drivers.

    Routes can be optimized in a number of ways. For example, comparing journey histories can make it easier to see which route is generally the fastest. However, live tracking with access to traffic information can also ensure that your drivers are taking the best routes based on avoiding traffic congestion and associated delays.

  • Keep fuel costs as low as possible

    There are a number of actions and driver behavior patterns that could potentially lead to fuel inefficiency becoming a problem. Examples of this include speeding, overly aggressive acceleration, and unnecessary deviation from planned routes. A good vehicle tracking system can help businesses to manage all of these occurrences.

    By detecting these issues and taking the necessary steps to correct them quickly, you have the potential to keep your business' fuel costs as low as possible. This could include intervening to correct poor driver behavior and rerouting drivers who have accidentally deviated off-course or encountered unexpected issues on the road.

How GPS technology works

GPS technology is widely used within the field of vehicle tracking, but how does this technology actually work? GPS itself stands for Global Position System, and the technology involves making use of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). India is one of a small number of countries – along with the United States, China, Japan, and the European Union as a collective – with its own GNSS. The Indian system is called NavIC and consists of eight satellites.

The basics of GPS tracking involve using satellites to transmit data to a compatible device, such as a GPS tracker or a smartphone. Essentially, GPS tracking is simultaneously tracking the position of a vehicle and the time that a signal was sent and received. A GPS tracker can also send signals to an online dashboard or app, allowing for up-to-date information on a device's position. When a vehicle is fitted with a GPS tracker, this allows the position of a vehicle to be determined but also allows for calculations related to speed, distance traveled, and more.

It is compulsory for commercial vehicles in India to be equipped with NavIC-based tracking devices. Shell Telematics devices are fully compliant with the terms of AIS 140 and have ARAI/ICAT certification.

Data made available to users

With our vehicle tracking system, an abundance of data is available and can be accessed on a 24/7 basis. This includes live vehicle location data, data covering the full duration of a journey, information related to all past journeys carried out by the vehicles in your fleet, and live details about traffic levels and congestion.

Specific driver behavior data is available, including information related to speeding, idle time, braking events, and acceleration. Geofencing can be set up, providing alerts when specific events happen, such as vehicles leaving city limits or approaching their destination. Shell Telematics solutions can also be integrated with the Shell Fuel Card, offering live information on fuel levels and refueling activity, and providing the ability to detect suspicious activity.