GPS Tracking & Fleet Management Software: 7 Best to Use
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Key notes
- If you want to improve delivery time and customer satisfaction, then you definitely need the best fleet management software.
- We provide you with a tool that offers real-time tracking, history and reporting, or geofencing.
- Another great program has automatic preventive maintenance alerts and calculates due dates in the calendar.
- You can also choose a fleet management app that gives you a free account with unlimited users forever.
Fleet Management Software (FMS) is a software solution allowing the firms to control the chaos of fleet maintenance to reduce risk and save time and money.
Fleet management solutions often offer features like GPS tracking, trailer tracking, dashboard camera, reefer tracking and much more in real-time to help small or big businesses to control their fleet operation.
This is also helpful if you want to stay compliant with ELD, FMCSA and any other regulatory authority in your country.
While the fleet management software aims to improve performance and reduce cost, some companies are hesitant of investing in an FMS due to budget constraints and the cost and time involved in training the employees with a new software solution.
This is where the free and open-source software makes it easy to keep your business in touch with modern technology without burning a hole in your pocket.
Fleet Management Software FAQ
-> What are the benefits of fleet management?
Fleet management allows your business to improve vehicle fuel efficiency. Another important benefit of fleet management is the improvement of the delivery time and the satisfaction of your clients. Last but not least, fleet management allows introducing additional jobs without massive additional spendings.
-> What does fleet management software do?
Fleet management software is a tool that allows a company to manage and coordinate its vehicles from a central information system. This type of software allows companies to improve delivery times, reduce fuel costs, optimize the routes, provide compliance with the government regulations and increase the safety of the cargo.
-> Why is fleet management important?
Fleet management is important because it allows you to react immediately in case of a route deviation, avoid potential fees and keep your clients always happy. Besides the minimized financial losses, efficient fleet management will generate longterm benefits like brand awareness and client trust, both of them being very important for a company.
In this article, we take a look at the best free fleet management software to keep your business on track, on time, and compliant with the local and federal regulations.
Track and organize your fleet activity with these 5 tools
GPSWOX (Editor’s choice)
- Price – Free / Premium
GPSWOX is a GPS location tracking system for small and large business firms. It is a premium cloud-based solution but does offer a free starter plan that you can try before making the purchase.
The main features of GPSWOX Include real-time tracking, notification alter, history and report, geofencing, mobile and SMS gateway.
The free account offer tracking of one object that is one vehicle, real-time tracking, and mobile app feature. Reset of the features are divided across Lite, Basic, Pro and White Label plans.
Using GPSWOX, you can track the location of vehicles, people, etc. online in real-time using Google Maps, Satellite or OSM. In addition, you can also know the speed, exact address, petrol consumption and travel history of your fleet online.
GPSWOX allows you to set geo-zones and sends you instant alerts about your fleet as soon as it enters or exits the zone. In case of theft, the device sends SOS alarm and also lets you kill the engine remotely.
This tool is available in over 120 countries and you can use it in 30 languages. It has a wide range of geographical gfeatures that you could use in order to make your work easier.
- Easy to set up and start tracking
- Compatible with over 900 tracking devices
- Presence in over 123 countries
- Over 30 languages available
The tracking reports can be exported in multiple formats including XLS, PDF, CSV, TXT and more. The report consists of information like GPS tracker name, driving hours, stopover, distance traveled and much more.
You also need a reliable GPS app to reach your destination on time.
GPSWOX is a feature-rich GPS tracking solution for fleet management. The free account is severely limited by features but if you have only one vehicle to track it can be a good solution.
FleetVIP
- Price – Free / Premium
FleetVIP is more of a fleet maintenance solution than fleet management software. The main features of FleetVIP include maintaining complete vehicle maintenance logs, automatic preventive maintenance alerts and calculate calendar due dates.
The free version of the software allows you to keep track of 2 vehicles. If you have more than two vehicles to maintain and need more features, look at the premium version of the tool.
One unique feature in FleetVIP is its true calendar due dates for scheduled maintenance tasks defined in running time of the vehicle in kilometers and miles.
FleetVIP offers timeline consistency checking for all completed maintenance, calculate calendar dues to adjust upcoming maintenance due dates for all scheduled tasks based on usage patterns, track unscheduled and unexpected maintenance.
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Additional features offered by the software include annual vehicle inspection date tracking, reduce frequent odometer checks, exports reports in spreadsheet format, can print 35 reports and hundreds of Ad Hoc queries, keeps complete vehicle maintenance log and easily tracks multiple vehicles and maintains a separate maintenance log.
FleetVIP is compatible with Windows computers running version 7/8/10 including 32-bit and 64-bit editions.
Odoo Fleet
- Price – Free
Odoo offers a suite of open source business app and Odoo Fleet is one of them. Odoo Fleet is a fleet management app that offers a free account with unlimited users forever.
There is an upgradable premium plan in case you want more features like customization and support.
Odoo Fleet allows you to add in-depth descriptions of your vehicles including brand and model, registration number, chassis number, number of doors and seats, color, etc. to quickly identify each vehicle from your fleet.
The software can monitor fuel consumption and keep track of mileage, by reporting odometer reading and also forecast service and repairs. In addition, it also comes with vehicle maintenance feature offering day-by-day follow up of all vehicle maintenance needs.
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The dashboard shows an overview of all the vehicles. You can create several statuses to keep track of ordered vehicles, standing vehicles, and retired vehicles.
The reporting and analysis include a simple and clear dashboard showing live reports and graphs and recording of all costs linked to your fleet with the option to create a custom report with user-defined parameters.
On the file side, Odoo Fleet misses out on GPS tracking and integration functionalities. Odoo Fleet is a non-nonsense solution with no restrictions on users and objects management.
Traccar
- Price – Free / Premium
Traccar is a free and open source GPS tracking system. Using the software, you can track your fleet of vehicle live on maps or satellite imagery.
Being an open source solution, Traccar needs to be hosted on the self-managed server. However, if you want the company to do the dirty job for you, Traccar offers premium plans for fully managed hosting with professional support.
Traccar claims to support more than 170 GPS protocols and more than 1500 models of GPS tracking devices. The list of all the supported devices can be found on the official website.
The modern user interface works with both the desktop and mobile devices. You can use the system on Android and iOS devices using the native app.
One interesting feature offered by Traccar is the ability to turn mobile devices to be used as a GPS tracker using a set of apps.
With Traccar you can view all the GPS devices in real time and send alerts through email or SMS in case of rash driving, over speeding, fuel and maintenance events, geo-fencing and many more.
In the report, Traccar includes simple location history, trip, chart and summary reports. The reports can be directly viewed from the mobile or app dashboard or export to an Excel file for detailed analysis.
OpenGTS
- Price – Free open source
OpenGTS (Open GPS Tracking System) is a first open source project designed to provide web-based GPS tracking service for a fleet of vehicles.
The software is currently being used by 110 countries over the world with thousands of vehicles being tracked every day.
The software was initially designed to handle the needs of an entry-level fleet; however, with time it has developed to be a highly scalable solution that can be used by large enterprises.
Each OpenGTS account supports multiple users along with separate login credentials with control access. You can track GPS devices from multiple vendors simultaneously and also find the list of compatible GPS trackers on the website.
However, organizations can customize the tool to work their own GPS trackers with custom programming.
The users can easily customize both the user interface and mapping service. OpenGTS comes with support for OpenLayers/OpenStreetMap, Google Maps, Microsoft Virtual Earth and Maps traction.
The reports can be generated using an internal XML-based reporting engine. The report can show historical data for a specific vehicle or an entire fleet in detail.
OpenGTS is a powerful fleet management solution with a lot of potential for customization. If you have a programming team and looking for a free fleet management software, OpenGTS can be customized to fit your needs by adding essential features on top.
Premium Fleet management software
While the free fleet management software is good for any business as they cost nothing to use, more often than not free software compromise on features or lack in features to put it correctly.
If you feel underwhelmed by the features offered by free FMS listed in this article, take a look at these premium fleet management software offering more features for a reasonable price.
Most of the premium fleet management software offers a free trial or demo so you can try the software without any risk.
Samsara
- Price – Free trial / Premium
Samsara offers a unified system for fleet management, driver safety, and compliance. It is a cloud-based system hence does not require any installation on your computer.
Notable features offered Samsara include GPS tracking, trailer tracking, routing and dispatch information, reefer monitoring and dashboard camera integration.
It meets regulatory requirements of ELD and FMCSA and also helps in keeping the driver’s behavior in check.
MyRouteOnline
- Price – Free / Premium with Free trial
MyRouteOnline is not a fleet management solution but a route optimization solution. The software converts route addresses from an excel sheet and creates a most optimal route plan that can be shared with a GPS or mobile device.
It is possibly the doctor strange of route mapping as it can create multiple or single routes at once and based on duration and stops parameters. You can further sort the route by shortest, fastest and balanced parameters to find the most cost-effective and safe directing for your fleet.
Whether you own and manage a fleet of 2 or 200 vehicles, fleet management software allows you to do more in less time. It can save time, money and a lot of work hours when done right.
All the software in this article offers a free version of its fleet management solution. The thing with free software is that most of them may not offer the latest in terms of technology and industry standard. However, for anyone new to this system, it offers enough to get you started.
You can always look for premium options as your business grows. Even for testing purposes, these free solutions offer a great learning experience without any risk.
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