How to cut costs on fleet management. Part 1: Connectivity

Just recently, we were writing about how to connect a car to GPS. We described why you need a SIM card in a GPS tracker and how much it may cost. Today, we’ll tell you how to cut costs on fleet management through M2M connectivity. 

What is connectivity in GPS tracking and fleet management?

GPS tracker detects vehicle location by the signals from satellites or cell phone towers (LBS). But for you to see where your vehicle is or what’s happening with it, the tracker should send the data to a GPS tracking system via a cellular network. And that’s why you need a SIM card in your tracker. 

Simply put, the messages from trackers are just like those you send to your friends via WhatsApp or SMS. The more messages are sent, the more money is spent. That’s why if a tracker sends data on vehicle location frequently, GPS tracking is more precise but more expensive. 

How expensive is the connectivity?

A tracker can send messages every few seconds, minutes, hours, days, etc. – it’s up to you to decide. The messages contain vehicle location, speed, altitude, fuel level, and other parameters that don’t сlaim your immediate attention. These standard messages from trackers are sent via the internet (mobile data), which is relatively inexpensive. 

But some events demand your attention at once – idling (meaning your driver has a rest with the engine on), harsh overspeeding (meaning you a car can get into an accident or penalized by the police), fuel theft, and much more. These messages are generally sent by SMS to a fleet manager’s mobile phone. SMS costs more but allows prompt reaction, as the fleet manager doesn’t need to stare at the screen all the time to detect events. 

But there’s a way to go without SMS, which will cut costs on fleet management significantly.

How to spend less on connectivity?

Instead of SMS, you can receive information about events in a messenger called Telegram for iOS and Android.

Why Telegram?

Here are three reasons why you should use the messenger instead of SMS for GPS tracking and fleet management: 

• It is free, so no additional cost is involved in receiving notifications on your mobile.
• It is much more reliable than SMS.
• It is faster than SMS so that you can receive notifications on multiple devices quickly.

That way, you can keep chatting with your friends and control your vehicles simultaneously. 

How to configure telegram notifications from your vehicles?

It is relatively easy – all you need is Telegram messenger installed on your laptop or smartphone and access to a fleet management system. We’ll use FiOS fleet management platform by KLOUDIP as an example. 

Let’s start with the Telegram app, where you need to create a bot.

Configure the Bot

1. Tap the “Search” icon.
2. Enter “BotFather” – the name of the Bot – to find it.
3. Tap “Start” and follow the instructions – the Bot will explain how to configure it step-by-step.
4. In the message starting with “Done!” you’ll see a HTTP API token – the 46-digit code – which is your token. The received token must be specified in the Bot key field FioS Notification settings –> “Bot token” field.

Configure a public channel

1. Create a public channel in Telegram
2. Add the created Bot to this channel as an admin with the rights to post messages in the channel, so that the bot can post notifications and alerts from vehicles to this channel.
3. Add all users who need to receive notifications as subscribers of the channel.

4 . Find the channel id of the created telegram channel.

In the link below, replace <YourBotToken> with the bot token and <@YourChannelName> with the link to the created channel in the @link format (without t.me/). You can find the fields in the “Info” section of the channel.

https://api.telegram.org/bot<YourBotToken>/sendMessage?chat_id=<@YourChannelName>&text=ping

Copy and paste this in your web browser and press enter. If you have entered details correctly you will receive a response that includes the Chanel ID nested inside “chat”{“id”.

Example:

The public chat is just like a group chat with your friends, but instead of friends, there are fleet managers and dispatchers. When something is happening with the vehicle, it sends a notification to the telegram chat. The dispatchers see the message at once and react.

Tip! Once you have completed the testing, we recommend converting your channel to a private channel. In that case, you choose people who have access to what is posted in the channel and can restrict access for unauthorized users. 

Configure your fleet management system to work with Telegram

To make your fleet management system work with Telegram, you only need to configure notifications. Let’s create one that will notify you if your vehicle is idling. In FiOS fleet management platform, it’s done through the “Notifications” module. 

1. Click “Create” a new notification.
2. Select a vehicle or group of vehicles.
3. Select “Idling” as the notification trigger. The system will send this alert when the vehicle is idling.

It won’t affect your business if the vehicle is idling for a few minutes – it may be waiting for a passenger or cargo. But when it’s more than ten minutes, something may be wrong, or a driver is having a rest at your expense. That’s why let the system notify you if the vehicle is idling for more than 10 minutes.

FiOS fleet management system can notify fleet managers and dispatchers through several channels: 

• Email takes longer for a dispatcher to notice it, as he has to check his email.
• SMS – which is quick but relatively expensive.
• Pop-up window – a dispatcher should watch the screen all the time to notice it.
• Telegram – which is the most cost-effective option. 

Select the option to send notifications to the Telegram channel we have created.

1. Select “Send notification to Telegram.”
2. Enter the “Bot token” – the 9-digit code that you’ve got while configuring your Telegram bot.
3. In the “Channel ID” field, enter the created channel ID.
4. Finish the configuration by clicking “Next,” “Next,” “Next.”

And here is how notifications look like in your Telegram channel.

Congratulations, you’ve just stopped paying for SMS and cut costs on fleet management. 

If you are stuck with configuring Telegram notifications, contact us, and we’ll explain it in detail.