May/June 2004

Track@Phone, one of the latest entrants to launch a mobile phone-based tracking service, hopes to differentiate its system by emphasising the facility for users to produce reports and analysis of tracking data.

It achieves this by providing users with a bespoke software application called People Locator, which they download when they first sign on. Rather than having to call up tracking information every time they log on, they can save the details and examine them later with this application when offline.

Director and co-founder Alan Davidson emphasises that the application is contained in a relatively compact file, and is not a large download, but says it adds valuable functionality to the system. "We were keen to be able to allow business users to review and analyse their information," he told m.logistics.

Users can also request to see the mobile nearest to a given location - for instance, to allocate engineers to service calls, or direct vehicles to pick-up points; and they can see a "snapshot" view of all tracked mobiles. There is also a facility to set up "geofences", with alerts if users cross them.

Behind the system is the GeoConcept geographic information system from Kingswood MapMechanics, which generates location maps using Navteq map data at user-selectable scales. A GeoConcept feature called Smartlabel is used to ensure that street names and other labels are always displayed intelligently.

Unusually, Track@Phone deals directly with the four major mobile phone networks (O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone), rather than buying airtime from third-party aggregators, and says this gives it more control of the system.

A consumer-focused version of the system is being rolled out this summer, and the company says it will be resold by Dixons Group's Genesis Communications mobile phone business and marketed through its PC World chain.