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Where the Toys Are
March 30, 2006
AITIA Fleet Management, powered by a novel fusion of AITIA’s network-monitoring solutions and its WEBRA 3.0 content- and workflow-management suite, allows companies to track vehicle locations, streamline fleet operations, and reduce routing redundancies.

A GSM-based Fleet Tracking Package for a Major European Telecom Consortium

AITIA Fleet Management, powered by a novel fusion of AITIA’s network-monitoring solutions and its WEBRA 3.0 content- and workflow-management suite, allows companies to track vehicle locations, streamline fleet operations, and reduce routing redundancies.

With minimal customer start-up costs and flexible Web- and WAP-based deployment options, AITIA’s fleet-management framework helps GSM network operators deliver a practical, efficient, low-cost service, realizing new revenue potential with existing network technology.

The AITIA fleet-management framework

The AITIA framework that powers AITIA Fleet Management works by yoking together AITIA’s powerful SGA product family – a set of signaling generator and analyzer tools that can dynamically deliver a complete network-status picture for telecom providers – with WEBRA 3.0, AITIA’s practical, flexible, standards-based content- and workflow-management solution. A customized WEBRA installation extracts GSM-cell data from that overall network-status picture, locating individual SIM cards on the GSM network and cross-referencing their locations with mapping data. The resulting visual representation of fleet deployment is made available to registered customers through secure portals accessible on the Web and on WAP-enabled mobile phones. The WEBRA-powered server supports such advanced functions as address search, preset automatic queries, bookmarking of frequently served locations, position-data archiving, on-demand aggregate-query display, distance-relative querying and plotting, and the sending of text messages to mobile devices registered with the system.
The upshot: With AITIA’s fleet-management framework, dispatchers, supervisors, and other managers can command an instant visual picture of available resources and mine historical data for patterns that can be used to improve productivity.

Key Features

AITIA’s fleet-management framework delivers reliable location data down to the size of the GSM cell; essentially, it plots the location of wireless users according to which GSM cell the user’s mobile device is communicating with. As long as the user’s mobile device is powered on and registered with the GSM network, fleet-management queries return the requested information on a map locating the user with a circle and a related icon. Service precision depends on GSM cell size; more fine-grained location data are available in metropolitan areas (where cells are closely clustered) than in rural locales, where cells are generally larger.
 
Because it’s built on the WEBRA 3.0 portal engine, the system is browser-independent; fleet-management Web pages and WAP sites are generated by the portal engine, guaranteeing that exactly the same content is available in different formats. The solution is built for parallel handling of mass requests; database storage and synchronized servers minimize risk of service failures in mission-critical contexts.
 
Once registered users and their employees sign the fleet-management user agreement and associated privacy-policy disclosure, the secure service site can be accessed with a username/password combination. (A demo version of the service is available without registration for everyone.)
 
The WEBRA-powered fleet-management map provides the following features:
  • Address search: Define your favorite venues (company headquarters, primary warehouses, important client locations, etc.) on the map.
  • Location query: Search for the location of certain mobile devices.
  • Time dependent queries: Track the changing location of particular mobile devices within a certain timeframe.
  • Location archives: Overlay the results of previous queries on the map in order to show a fleet-location continuum over time.
  • Distance measure: Search for certain mobile-device locations and display all of them, or show only those that are near to each other, or display them in relation to a certain other (i.e.: favorite) location.
  • Location categories: Group searched locations into categories or subcategories that can be handled with special administrator rights.
  • Text message sending: Send messages through the online interface to a single mobile user or to a selected user category.

Advantages of AITIA’s Fleet Tracking Framework for Network Providers

With AITIA’s WEBRA-powered fleet-tracking framework, GSM network providers can open new revenue opportunities by targeting:
  • Subscriber companies managing a significant vehicle fleet
  • Subscriber companies with highly mobile sales teams
  • Anyone interested in tracking the location of affiliated wireless users on a temporary or permanent basis

Advantages of AITIA’s Fleet Tracking Framework for End-User Companies

  • Allocate incoming logistical requests flexibly, optimizing dispatch based on vehicle location and deployment history.
  • Optimize fleet traffic.
  • Increase efficiency of fleet resources deployed on routine daily tasks.
  • Dramatically decrease maintenance costs.
  • Gain at-a-glance information on employee and equipment deployment.

Comparison of AITIA’s Fleet Tracking service with GPS-powered services

End-user companies needn’t look for a new service provider; Fleet Management can be ordered directly from their GSM network provider in minutes.
  • No expensive hardware purchase required in order to use this service; tracking data is provided by the GSM network and the SIM card already in each mobile device, using current wireless service.