GPS Tracking – Track Drivers, Vehicles And Assets, Tracking Path, Playback, Breadcrumbs, Tracking Source And More

Route4Me’s real time GPS tracking system enables you to track the exact location of drivers, vehicles, and assets on routes. See where your drivers are and where they’ve been with detailed tracking history, track their route compliance, and more. In detail, monitor your driver, vehicle, and asset GPS distance on routes, view GPS tracking breadcrumbs, see when and where geofences around route destinations are entered or exited, simulate routes before they start, view tracking history playbacks, and more. Route4Me’s integrated GPS Tracking App for iOS and Android GPS Route App record and collect all route completion activities. These are then synchronized with your Route4Me account in real time and become instantly available with no action required from you or the user assigned to the route. Furthermore, use Telematics Integrations to connect GPS vehicles with installed OBD and GPS devices for GPS fleet tracking, asset monitoring, and more to facilitate accurate asset tracking for your medium size business or large business vehicle fleet and field team.

Real Time GPS Route Tracking And Tracking History

Route4Me’s best GPS tracking app enables you to view the current location of your drivers on routes at any time, easily track their routing activities, and gather actionable intelligence to improve routing efficiency. Real time GPS tracking can be performed through Route4Me’s iPhone GPS App and Android GPS App or Telematics. The app sends user route action and location updates, which are seamlessly synchronized with your Route4Me trusted route software account in real time.

To track a driver or a user on a route in real time, go to “Routes” and then “Routes” from the Navigation Menu to open your Routes List. Then, click the “Open Route” button next to a preferred in-progress “Started” route or a “Finished” route to open it in the Route Editor.

After that, in the Route Editor, click the Tracking Button on the map to access the “Tracking Path“, “Breadcrumbs“, “Playback“, “Compliance“, and “Tracking Source” options. Learn more about these GPS vehicle tracking options further in this guide.

Route GPS Tracking Path And GPS Distance

To view the Tracking Path of a field employee, check the box labeled “Tracking Path” in the Route Editor tracking settings. Specifically, the Tracking Path shows the actual driving path, biking path, or walking path of the user assigned to the route up to the user’s current location for “Started” routes and for the whole route if it is “Finished“. Moreover, the Tracking Path also shows arrows corresponding to the user’s travel direction assigned to the respective route. In addition, the Tracking Path enables you to view when and where a driver has deviated from the planned route path.

Route Tracking GPS Breadcrumbs With Location Coordinates, Speed And More

To enable location updates on the map, check the “Breadcrumbs” box in the tracking settings on the Route Editor. This will enable GPS Breadcrumbs on the Tracking Path that correspond to the position of the user or vehicle on the route when a GPS update was sent to the reliable route planner software. Specifically, location data is updated regularly, and each Breadcrumb corresponds to an individual location update. Hover over a Breadcrumb to view the tracking data associated with that respective GPS tracking update. In detail, GPS Breadcrumbs enable you to view the timestamp of the respective location update, the speed of the user or vehicle, the exact location coordinates on the route when the user or vehicle’s location was synchronized, and the tracking data source. Additionally, when using the Route4Me GPS App for tracking, the respective user’s username and account email are included in the Breadcrumb data.

The “Breadcrumbs” option also enables an active location indicator for the user or vehicle assigned to the route. Hover over the indicator to view the same tracking data as the GPS Breadcrumbs.

Route GPS Tracking History Playback Player

In addition to location updates, Route4Me’s GPS fleet tracking enables you to view a playback of the assigned user or vehicle’s tracking history on the route. To open the Playback Player, check the “Playback” box in the tracking settings on the Route Editor. The Playback Player shows the total tracked route duration and the dynamic speed of the assigned user or vehicle. Additionally, you can skip to the start or end of the route using the corresponding buttons or change the speed multiplier to quickly and easily view a playback of the tracked route.

Planned Route Tracking Simulation

Route4Me’s GPS tracking system enables you to simulate a route before starting it. This feature provides a visual representation of how the planned route will be driven so that you can make corresponding adjustments to ensure everything goes according to plan. To do so, click “View” in the top menu bar and select “Simulation Tool” from the menu.

The Simulation Tool shows the planned route duration and the expected speed of the assigned user or vehicle on the route. Additionally, you can skip to the start or end of the route using the corresponding buttons or open the speed multiplier menu to speed up the simulation by the preferred factor, from one to one speed to a thousand times faster. This way, you can quickly and easily preview the planned route.

Planned Route Compliance Tracking With Route Deviations Distance

Furthermore, Route4Me’s GPS route tracking enables you to see if planned routes are followed, when and where a deviation or route detour occurs, how much of the planned route was completed, and more. To track route compliance GPS distance data, check the box labeled “Compliance” in the tracking settings. Specifically, portions of the route are marked accordingly if they were traveled in compliance with the planned route path or deviate from the planned route. Furthermore, the compliance panel in the bottom left of the map shows the percentage of the planned route that was followed or deviated, as well as the total planned distance that was followed and the total GPS route detour distance.

Route GPS Tracking Data Source

The Route4Me Mobile GPS Tracking app installed on a mobile device or a vehicle’s installed telematics device from a Telematics Vendor can generate tracking data for the GPS tracking system. For your convenience, the Route Editor enables you to seamlessly switch between Route4Me Mobile App tracking data and Telematics GPS route data at the touch of a button.

Tracking GPS Routes With Mobile App Data

The Route4Me iPhone GPS App and Android GPS Tracker App use location services to synchronize a vehicle’s position on the route with the best route management software. Thus, you can track field employees on routes and their route compliance in real time. To view tracking data from the Mobile App, click the Tracking Icon in the Route Editor map. Then, click “Tracking Source” from the tracking settings menu and select “Route4Me“. Along with Route4Me’s Geofencing, mobile app tracking provides real time data on a vehicle’s position on the route, destination arrival and departure coordinates, and much more.

Additionally, Route4Me’s Advanced Configuration Editor allows you to adjust the mobile app’s advanced compliance and navigation settings.

Telematics Data GPS Fleet Vehicle Tracking

Alternatively, a Telematics Integration between your enterprise route planner account and a Telematics Vendor enables you to track GPS vehicles on the map in real time and check route tracking history. Specifically, Route4Me will automatically collect telematics data from the GPS trackers and telematics devices installed on your vehicles and display it on the map. To view tracking data from your telematics provider, click the Tracking Icon in the Route Editor map. Then, click “Tracking Source” from the tracking options menu and select your telematics provider. Together with Route4Me’s Geofencing functionality, telematics GPS tracking provides real time data on a vehicle’s position, destination arrival and departure coordinates, and more.

Merged Mobile App And Telematics GPS Tracking Data

In addition to separate Mobile App and telematics tracking data, you can use merged Mobile App and telematics data. The “Merged” tracking source is designed to provide an accurate and uninterrupted tracking path by utilizing the tracking data from multiple available tracking sources. Therefore, if one of the tracking sources is not available, Route4Me automatically uses the tracking data from another available tracking source, providing a continuous tracking path. When both tracking sources are available simultaneously, Route4Me utilizes the tracking distance from only one source to prevent duplication.

To view merged tracking data from your telematics provider and Mobile App, click the Tracking Icon in the Route Editor map. Then, click “Tracking Source” from the tracking options menu and select “Merged“.

Track Multiple Drivers And Vehicle On Routes Map In Real Time

Furthermore, Route4Me also enables you to track multiple users on routes simultaneously. To do so, go to “Routes” and then “Routes” from the Navigation Menu to open your Routes List. Then, select the routes with the users you want to track assigned to them. After that, click “View” from the top menu bar and select “View on Multiple Routes Map” from the menu.

Alternatively, go to “Routes” and then  Routes Map from the Navigation Menu. Then filter and select the preferred routes.

The selected routes will be enabled on the map in different colors. Next, hover over the “Tracking” tab on the map and select “Users” to enable GPS user tracking in real time. This will add tracking markers for the users assigned to the selected routes and open the full list of all users on your Route4Me account. On the interactive multiple Routes Map, you can track dispatched route progress, destination visitation data, real time driver locations, and more.

The Users Panel displays the current connection statuses of all users on your business route planner account with color-coded Connection Icons. Each color corresponds to a specific connection status, as outlined in the table below. Additionally, if a Telematics Vehicle is assigned to the route, the logo of the respective Telematics Provider will be displayed next to the user. Moreover, to only display users who are currently active, check the Connection Icon box in the top right of the Users Panel.

Then, to enable real time route GPS tracking paths on your Routes Map, hover over the “Tracking” tab and then “Routes“. Next, select the time frame for which you want to display tracking paths. To enable tracking paths for the currently selected routes, click “Route Date“. This will also display GPS breadcrumbs corresponding to individual GPS location updates sent from a field employee’s mobile device or an installed telematics device on a telematics vehicle.

Additionally, click the Gear Icon next to a user to access additional options. Select “Locate on Map” from the menu to move the map to the location of the selected user. Alternatively, select “Open Last Known Route” to open the last route executed by the respective user in the Route Editor. The “Show Activity Feed” option opens the dynamic Activity Feed, which shows a list of actions done by the respective user. Additionally, learn more about Route4Me’s Dynamic Activity Feed.

User Clustering On GPS Tracking Map

In addition to tracking, you can enable clustering of users in close proximity. Instead of having many icons on top of each other, you can view all your team members as convenient clusters marked with the number of users in each area.

To enable User Clustering, hover over “Tracking” in the top right of the map and select “Clustering” from the menu. After that, when both User Clustering and real time tracking are enabled, and you zoom out on the Routes Map, all users in close proximity are gathered into user clusters for more convenient visualization and tracking. Users who don’t have other team members in their area are displayed on the map as individual tracking indicators.

Tracking Analytics – View GPS Route Tracking Data

Route4Me’s GPS fleet tracking and user GPS tracking are indispensable tools for gathering actionable intelligence. In addition, the route optimization Web Software lets you easily enable, view, and filter route GPS analytics to gain detailed insight into the performance of your field employees and your routing operation.

Routes List And Routes Map GPS Data Columns

In detail, you can customize both the Routes List and Routes Map by enabling GPS tracking data columns. This way, you can easily view, compare, and analyze the GPS tracking statistics of different routes and users. To do so, go to “Routes” and then “Routes” from the Navigation Menu to open the Routes List. Then, click the Display Columns Icon to open the panel where you can enable Routes List data columns by checking the boxes next to them. Additionally, use the search field to filter the available column options and find your preferred GPS route tracking data columns.

Furthermore, you can enable the same routing fleet GPS tracking data columns on your interactive multiple Routes Map. To do so, open the preferred routes on the Routes Map and check the boxes next to them to enable these routes on the map. Then, click “View” from the top menu bar and hover over “Customize Columns“. Next, click an unchecked column option to enable it, or click a checked column option to deactivate it. The corresponding columns are displayed in the Routes Map List on the left, with each route’s associated data shown in the respective columns.

In addition, the Routes Map enables you to display aggregate GPS vehicle tracking data combined for all currently selected routes in the Summary Table. To do so, click the Gear Icon in the Summary Table and enable the preferred aggregate columns from the available categories. In detail, you can track route analytics for all currently selected routes, vehicle utilization, distance, time, cost and profit rates, operational efficiency, and more. Additionally, learn more about your Route4Me Routes Map.

Route GPS Tracking Analytics Dashboard

In addition to viewing real time GPS tracking data for multiple routes on the Routes Map, you can use your business route management software Dashboard to view GPS route tracking analytics for your business on a centralized control panel. To open the Dashboard, go to “Analytics” and then “Dashboard“. Then, use the “Select Date Range” field to filter which route data will be included in your customized GPS analytics report. Specifically, routes scheduled for a specific date range, with specific assigned users, and group data by route or destination type.

Next, click the Three-Dot Icon in the “Total” and “Graphs” sections to customize the displayed and aggregated GPS tracking dashboard data. Additionally, learn more about using your Route4Me Dashboard.

Export GPS Route And Tracking Data As CSV Spreadsheet

Furthermore, you can export a spreadsheet file with GPS tracking history and data from the Web Platform. After you open a route in the Route Editor, click “File” from the top menu bar and hover over “Export Route“. Then, click “Export CSV“.

This will open the “Export Route Data” window that allows you to customize items to include in the exported tracking data. Specifically, you can use the “Field Search” bar to find the preferred tracking data items. Then, check the boxes next to the items to include in the exported file. The added items are displayed in the right section of the window, where you can change their order, which will change the order of the columns in the exported CSV file.

In addition, you can export tracking data for multiple routes simultaneously from the Routes Map. To do so, open the preferred routes on the Routes Map and check the boxes next to them. Then, click “File” from the top menu bar and hover over “Download as” from the menu. Like the Route Editor, you can export a custom GPS tracking history file by selecting “Export CSV“.

Alternatively, you can export a minimal tracking history file by selecting “Export Tracking History as CSV” from the menu. The exported tracking history file contains the user or vehicle’s timestamp, coordinate, and speed data on the route at every interval when location and tracking data was synchronized with your Route4Me account.

Troubleshooting GPS Route Tracking

Here, you can find instructions on troubleshooting GPS fleet tracking issues. Conditions on the road can often introduce irregularities or unexpected tracking behavior. Make sure all your preferred settings are enabled, and learn how to resolve GPS route tracking issues.