Jan/Feb 2004

The price threshold for near real-time vehicle tracking is likely to take a further beating with the launch of a new system from a company called Wire3 Technologies.

The all-in price for its Sat3 system, including installation, is just £10 per vehicle per week. That includes position reports every two minutes, although the company says that for little variation in the price, the frequency could be "more or less as often as you like."

As the product's name implies, Sat3 uses GPS satellite-based location, and relays data to the operator via GPRS. The company has commissioned its own compact on-board GPS receiver and computer, which is fitted as part of the system.

Although it is marketed as an easily-installed fit-and-run system, Sat3 is also designed to hook into a variety of other on-board systems to capture and record data on performance or driver activities. The company told m.logistics it will also be able to link fairly seamlessly with digital tachographs when these finally come into use.

Vehicle positions are delivered to users over the Internet, and are displayed with Microsoft MapPoint digital mapping software. This is installed locally on the operator's computer - an approach which, says the company, means performance is slicker, since maps themselves need not be downloaded - only the data.

Features include the ability to geofence an area, and the option to "replay" journeys and view the route on a map.

A range of 30 pre-configured text and graphical reports is also available to users for displaying information on vehicles' journeys and use. These can be exported to external applications such as spreadsheets, or displayed and printed on their own.

Whilst full integration with existing systems is not part of the basic proposition, Wire3 is also a reseller of the fully integrated Wireless Delivered mobile application from Talecom, while Talecom for its part will also be reselling the Sat3 tracking system.