May/June 2005

Simple architecture and a focus on vehicle activity logs are winning fast-growing vehicle tracking company Quartix new customers at the rate of 14 a week, according to sales and marketing director Andy Kirk. The company already has 550 customers tracking 3,500 vehicles online, and the latest to sign up is vehicle rental company Arriva, which is fitting Quartix's TrackTech in some of its 12,000 cars and light commercial vehicles.

Low-cost, live vehicle tracking (as little as 77p per day) and software that automatically keep track of mobile workers' timesheets and journey logs are two of the attractions. The information is available via the secure Quartix web site, but customers also receive daily and weekly emails of vehicle activity.

"Skilled tradesmen and engineers are an expensive commodity," Kirk says. "Our customers want a simple method of completing timesheets for mobile employees, a way of calculating fuel usage and ways to improve productivity. The logs help them achieve that."

Vehicles are tracked automatically via GPS. The day is split into separate trips and the level of detail in the report can be specified for each vehicle. The on-board unit constantly monitors all activity on the vehicle, and data is transmitted back to Quartix servers every minute, two minutes or four minutes, depending on what the customer requires. Whatever the default option, the unit automatically transmits the data within a minute of the ignition going on or off. Stops with the ignition on and short movements around a site can be either shown or filtered out.

 

Customer names and locations can be added to the database at no extra charge, reports Kirk, making it easy to identify regular customers. The email reports have embedded links to location and route maps - allowing users to get a quick visual image of journeys.

Quartix is working on including additional features such as alarm notifications if vehicles go off route or fail to arrive at designated drops. However, it is already possible to integrate Quartix tracking data with third-party mobile applications software such as signature capture, and to download data for input into fleet management and payroll systems.