Maptuit Teams With NavTech For Accuracy
Maptuit Corp., an ALK competitor in some areas, has formed an alliance with Navigation Technologies Inc., the Chicago-based digital map maker perhaps better known as NavTech.
NavTech technology is used in many solutions across a number of industries. Maptuit provides trucking-specific solutions and is best known in trucking for FleetNav, a program that provides turn-by-turn directions to drivers on demand.
FleetNav is a hosted solution, meaning it runs on Maptuit's server in Burlington, Mass., and provides information over the Internet. FleetNav integrates with most major enterprise and dispatch programs — most notably those from TMW Systems, Tom McLeod Software and Innovative Computing Co. — and communicates with drivers over Qualcomm or Aether mobile communications systems.
When a driver requests directions from dispatch, FleetNav learns the driver's location from the company's system, plots a route (which can include recommended fuel stops), sends that route to the company where it is relayed over Qualcomm or Aether to the truck cab.
FleetNav provides directions in a clever sort of graphic shorthand that is immediately understandable on the driver's computer console, yet consists of relatively few letters and characters. The idea is to save money on transmission costs, especially over satellite communications systems.
FleetNav provides a wealth of information to dispatchers, formatting driver location information from the company system in graphic representations that provide a clear picture of progress. Dispatchers can view one truck, a specific group of trucks or the entire fleet. They can view trucks in a national or regional context or they can zoom down to the city block level.
Program icons provide location information and more. Icon color tells if a truck is on route or off route, distinguishing between serious off-route status and less egregious "out-of-corridor," perhaps attributable to a local detour. If a truck is seriously off-route, the program displays both the assigned route and the route the program expects the driver will take. It calculates measurable differences between the two routes, including an estimate in revenue. FleetNav offers a variety of virtually instant reports that provide insight on the performance of drivers and also of dispatchers.
Why the Maptuit partnership with NavTech?
According to Max Stevens-Guille, Maptuit senior marketing VP, data from NavTech will enable even more accurate mapping and routing solutions. Navtech's data, he said, is very detailed, with up to 160 attributes for each road segment. Those attributes include characteristics such as elevation and traffic restrictions.
Stevens-Guille said that data from other providers could be off by 100 feet or more. That kind of discrepancy can indicate a truck on one side of a highway when it is actually on the other, so he could be sent directions that assume he's heading in the opposite direction.
