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Telematics – an intelligent future, like it or not
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Spring 2006
Minorplanet unveils Web-based telematics system
Vehicle tracking specialist Minorplanet has launched a Web-based, hosted tracking service called VMIgreenlight as part of its fleet management portfolio. The company says its research indicated that with ever-increasing pressure on fleets to meet key performance targets and increase efficiency, fleets wanted a simple-to-use, upgradeable fleet management system with exceptions-based reporting. The company's existing VMI solution does have a Web-based option called Webtrack, but this is designed to be installed and operated by the customer. VMIgreenlight by contrast is hosted by a Birmingham-based ASP-solutions provider. For a basic feature set VMIgreenlight costs around £1 per vehicle per day. The VMIgreenlight screen provides an at-a-glance snapshot of what's happening with the user's fleet. The status of each vehicle is quickly identified thanks to a three-colour system. Green indicates moving, and red is stopped. A quarter-segment in red, for example, indicates a vehicle has been stopped for 15 minutes. 
As well as live tracking with a find-vehicle-now function, the application incorporates six-minute interval reporting and six standard reports. The vehicle "snail trail" includes dynamic confirmation of route and speed, plus historic playback for up to three months. There is a street level locator with address filtering; geofence watchboxes; a KPI reporting function; and reports scheduler and management tools. VMIgreenlight uses Microsoft's Windows .Net operating system. Among other things, this has apparently made it possible for the on-board data communications unit to be interrogated over the air. Minorplanet says that 90 per cent of faults can be resolved without having to take the vehicle off the road. Additionally, as and when new features are added, the on-board units can be upgraded remotely.
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