Key Considerations for Asset Tracking

If you have a mixed fleet that includes vehicles, trailers, heavy equipment, or any other type of asset, it’s crucial to use a GPS tracking system that offers the right asset tracking functionality.

With any type of solution, it’s important to first have an understanding of what your goals are or what issues you are trying to solve – and asset tracking no different. If you are researching technology options to track your mixed fleet, the following are the key considerations to ensure the solution meets all your needs.

What Kind of Asset Tracking Do You Need?

This question refers to what kind of information you are looking to retrieve from your assets or equipment. Do you need to know runtime? Distance? Location? All of the above? Also, determining how often you need updates on location and other types of information about the asset are important when looking for solutions. For instance, if you need to know the distance traveled (pinged every few minutes) vs. whether it moved location or is being stolen (pinged once or twice a day), the cost will vary based on these different ping frequencies. The more pings per day, the higher the monthly cost.

Powered or Non-Powered?

Do the assets you want to track have their own power source? For non-powered assets (such as flatbed trailers, storage containers, and some heavy construction equipment) there are battery-powered devices available. One key consideration here is that with battery-powered devices, the more times they send information, the faster the battery will be consumed. Some asset tracking providers do offer solar-powered devices.

Cellular or Satellite?

This is a straightforward consideration with mobile asset tracking. Satellite device options are typically only used in remote areas without (or very poor) cellular coverage. A key consideration with satellite devices is that in most instances, they will have a higher cost than cellular device options.

Challenges Asset Tracking Solves

No matter what type of asset tracking solution you ultimately require, the top issues asset tracking helps solve are:

These areas of asset tracking are important to keep in my as you look for a solution. As your research of telematics providers develops, there are important questions to ask so that you find the right fit.