4 Ways to Use Custom GPS Based Alerts for Asset Visibility

Alerts and notifications can be a lifesaver, because when you’re aware of what is happening with your cargo, it’s that much easier to keep your customers informed and happy.

Not sure you’re reaping the rewards of efficiency and profitability with your alerts and notifications? Here are four quick ways to get you going:

1. Set up geofences and get notifications when trailers enter or exit the area

Are you keeping track of every time an asset enters or leaves a service yard? If you create a geofence around that yard with landmarks, you don’t have to count on anyone else to know your assets are safe and sound. You can set a notification for when assets enter or exit.

These notifications may take the form of an automated email or text messages sent to a designated person in the company within minutes of a unit reporting from the geofenced area.

Setting up geofences with landmarks helps you utilize alerts and notifications to their fullest. If you’re not familiar with geofencing, you may want to check out our blog article Landmarks Mark the Spot: The Best Ways to Use Landmarks for Trailer Tracking and the related infographic, Geofencing With Landmarks, to get more acquainted with the topic.

2. Get notifications when a trailer deviates from a specified route

It’s one thing to know when your assets are in a yard, but once they’re on the road, are you making sure they’re staying en route rather than being driven away by a thief? GPS tracking can easily tell you where any vehicle or asset is at any time, but no one has time to constantly monitor a virtual map.

A route fence is a type of geofence that solves this problem. Route fences require three things:

A route
A deviation radius (i.e. allowing for access roads or other side roads on a route)
Time to complete the route

The third requirement is critical because depending on the area, a thief with a stolen load may not deviate far from the route the driver would have taken. For instance, a thief could steal a trailer, move it to a warehouse district, and switch the load to another trailer.

If your trailer tracking system requires the driver to arrive at the end point within a designated timeframe, the route would still be considered violated, and panic mode would be enabled automatically. An email or text message saying the route was violated could then be sent to the person responsible for asset management.

3. Set a lockdown zone

Safety and security alerts increase the safety and security of your fleet by helping you act quickly when you need to recover a trailer. The ability to lock down assets overnight (or any time they shouldn’t be in use) is very valuable if you have loaded trailers awaiting delivery to a client. If the asset were to move outside the lockdown zone before the lockdown expires, panic mode would be enabled, and the designee would receive an automated email or text.

Lockdown landmarks are useful to alert via text instead of email. Many people don’t monitor their company emails after hours but would readily see a text alert appear on their phone.

4. Get alerts that help you schedule maintenance based on actual trailer use

When assets don’t get routine maintenance, you end up risking breakdowns that cost your business time and money. Never fear! Alerts and notifications can help you out here too. A company could get a notification when the mileage on an asset reaches a threshold indicating that it requires maintenance. If the service location is also inside a landmarked geofence, you would then get another message when the asset enters the maintenance location. If you receive the former without the latter, you know that someone hasn’t done their job.