E – Drive Technology Ltd.

The following is a paid review. I was compensated for my time to research and write. All opinions expressed are strictly my own.
Originally published on our commentary sister-blog, GPS ROI Tracking:

Introduction: I was asked to look over the products and services of a firm I wasn’t familiar with today, E – Drive Technology Ltd., located in Tirat Hacarmel (near Hafia), Israel. Not unusual to be looking at an international firm in the GPS business, although I find that very few of them have been able to provide the level of support that customers in the US should be looking for. (in fairness, the majority of US-based suppliers can’t provide decent support, either … it’s the number one problem in the GPS tracking industry, in my experience).

Website Findings: The E- Drive Technology (EDT) website is about average for companies in this industry. It’s obviously completely understandable to a company employee who understands the nuances of EDT’s seemingly broad product line, but approaching it as if I were a potential client totally new to the idea of GPS tracking I found it quite confusing and “tech heavy”. There are many places which ask a customer to deice between different EDT products before sending the viewer on … this is a bit clumsy in practice since the customer won’t know the difference and may well leave in confusion. I’d suggest an approach that centered on making an easy to follow “path” for each visitor category: Looking for corporate info, researching the field of GPS tracking, small fleet owner, large fleet owner, government purchaser. Something along those lines would work much better for both company and visitor I believe.

This is the first site I have encountered in quite some time that does not work properly in the FireFox web browser. This should be attended to right away because not only is FireFox becoming very popular with business users, misplaced text and other errors such as I have noticed usually indicates a basic issue with non-standards compliant web site code.

The site does contain a wealth of information on EDT’s product line. I like the format of having detailed brochure downloads, but I also feel there should be a short “bullet point” page for each product that leads to the .pdf … works well, though.

Product Line: This company has one of the broadest lines of tracking and fleet management devices I have come across. I see this as a great corporate strength, but also a weakness. Everything seems to be a special-purpose product designed by a separate group of engineers, all in separate packages (with consequent separate power wiring, mounting and other installation concerns) and little or no integration/commonality. It would seem EDT would greatly enhance their offerings by offering more integrated solutions. A client should be able to buy a basic package and then add features from a menu or option list. From a practical standpoint it is perfectly rational to repackage items so that a single “box” gets installed into the client’s vehicle and then additional features added via a plug-in card, EProm or even software key application. The cost of including electronics that might or might not be purchased into a single chassis is trivial, versus building, stocking, shipping and selling a number of different chassis and enclosures. An integrated approach would result in savings for EDT and the customer.

In general the product line shapes up like this:

Fuel Management: This is an aspect most GPS tracking companies totally ignore, so I give EDT credit here. However, managing fuel purchases, fueling stops, fuel mileage and such with a separate system can never afford the savings that an integrated tracking and fuel management systems would offer.

Vehicle Data Logging: Again, there are several different systems which log vehicle operating times, engine hours, mileage and speed. These are essentially separate from the other products and most importantly do not track vehicle location information along with the other data. Where a driver speeds is at least as important to management as the fact that he broke a maximum speed. drive 80 mph in a 75 mph zone on an Interstate requires a much different management response than driving 80 mph in a school zone.

Non-Live (Post Mission) GPS Tracking: This is an oft-ignored area of the GPS tracking equation. It has the advantage of no monthly costs for data transmission and with some systems offers a more detailed mapping and data resolution. But it’s limited in scope and in my experience most clients who have opted for this type system later wish they had gone real-time. EDT has two separate products in the limited market segment which seems like overkill and certainly confuses potential clients.

Live (near) Real-Time GPS Tracking: This is what the majority of people think of when GPS tracking is mentioned. EDT seems to have all their bases covered in this area, except for one essential issue. All their systems rely upon the cellular (GSM/GPRS) commercial networks. There are huge areas of the US (and other large countries) where cellular-based systems will just not perform well enough to justify the expense. (Note, in my experience you can not relay upon the so-called coverage maps of cellular carriers, either … read their disclaimers, sometime). Cellular-based systems may serve a client well, but each and every potential client must thoroughly test using the client’s vehicles and the client’s mission profile. To offer a complete GPS vehicle tracking solution a company should offer a satellite-based option to insure coverage wherever the client’s may venture. Even better are intelligent hybrid systems offered by several manufacturers which select the best/cheapest option for data transmittal. Storing the data for transmission when the vehicle comes back into cellular coverage is an industry-standard “kludge”. Rest assured the no-coverage area will “just happen” to be where your problems occur, no matter which cellular-based provider you select.

Conclusions:

If you’re not yet using GPS tracking to improve your business’s bottom line, you’re already behind the eight-ball. Get busy and get saving. EDT would be a good place to add to you ’short list” of products to evaluate. Be sure that you evaluate under actual conditions with your own fleet and make sure you can get an adequate level of support before making a purchase commitment.

The foregoing is a paid review. I was compensated for my time to research and write. All opinions expressed are strictly my own. Originally published on our commentary sister-blog, GPS ROI Tracking