Cost effective tracking

Established to bring a new, simple, cost effective tracking and telematics solution to the market and offer small businesses and consumers a cost effective way to monitor their property, more than 10,000 pinpointpal units have already been fitted to a range of vehicles.

Additionally, the units are being used to track plant and equipment, boats, mobile homes and caravans, classic cars, motorbikes and agricultural machinery.

Now, the Bristol headquartered company, which designs, develops and manufactures the technology in the UK, is in discussions with a number of leasing and rental companies and end user fleets having been helped in the development of the telemetry by Fleet Assist, a leading supply chain management specialist for the UK fleet and leasing industry.

A number of Fleet Assist customers, such as JCT600 Vehicle Leasing Solutions are now fitting pinpointpal telematics devices to vehicles they operate. In addition, a number of rental organisations, including Global Self Drive and Choice Vehicle Rentals as well as wholesale electrical supplier Yesss Electrical, which operates 2500 vehicles across the UK and Europe, are also fitting the technology.

Paul Woodman, managing director of pinpointpal, said: "What we are discovering by talking directly with the fleet sector is that for many businesses the functionality offered by the myriad of telematics suppliers out there is often too complicated; they feel they do not have the time to analyse the raft of data captured; and, as a result, they consider the costs too prohibitive against the benefits these systems offer.

"A highly competitive sector previously considered to be ‘off limits’ to an independent manufacturer and supplier, we have been enticed into targeting the fleet sector by organisations that see pinpointpal as a viable, simple and cost effective alternative to other complex and expensive telematics solutions. We have seeded our brand and we are seeing growth as a result of becoming known in the fleet sector.”

Consequently, pinpointpal is the antidote to the plethora of ‘high end’ devices, and delivers to fleet decision makers’ computers, smartphone and other mobile devices information using GPS technology including:

• Vehicle location updates
• Vehicle location and journey history and constant visibility of fleet mileage
• Vehicle movement alerts across both location and outside of specified hours regulating behaviours and minimising loss and damage
• Mileage threshold alerts to help monitor vehicle use, improve management of service intervals and limit exposure to end of contract excess mileage charges
• Speed threshold alerts sent when a pre-set MPH figure is exceeded to aid occupational road risk management and assist with accident investigations
• Sharing of all or select trackers across an unlimited number of users, to better enable the visibility and management of a fleet; whether a fleet of vans across multiple depots, or proactively working in partnership with a fleet provider to manage mileage and servicing and reduce costs.
  

Fleet Assist has provided assistance to pinpointpal with the development of its product, which has been driven by a number of its customers having a requirement for low-cost telemetry units to be fitted to vehicles to capture vehicle mileage with the view to developing this further, and provide the functionality to deliver predictive service and maintenance information.

Vincent St Claire, commercial director of Fleet Assist, said: "We have had a great experience assisting pinpointpal in developing its product and believe its proposition will enable it to establish a niche of its own in the fleet and daily rental marketplace.

"There are multiple benefits to all fleets from the accurate capture of vehicle mileage on a day-to-day basis not least in respect of ensuring that all company cars and vans are serviced in accordance with manufacturer schedules.”

A pinpointpal ‘box’ can be fitted in 20 minutes either on a DIY basis or using a UK wide team of 150 installers.

Mr Woodman said: "Telematics is in its infancy and our experience is that people are unsure of what they need in a product. When a vehicle is defleeted the device can then be easily unplugged and transferred to a new vehicle. It is an inexpensive and easy to use vehicle tracking solution offering the data fleet providers and managers need right now.

"As all of our products can be improved and updated remotely without the need to replace expensive hardware, we are committed to growing and developing our products, as the needs of customers grow and change.

"We are engaged in many conversations with fleet operators that feel many telematics devices deliver too much information and thus systems are not value for money. Additionally, we are in discussions with more contract hire and leasing companies that want to offer their fleet customers the choice of a ‘lite’ telematics solution as well as a more complicated ‘high end’ product.”

Billed as the 'challenger to high end telematics', pinpointpal is a privately owned company, established in 2010 and, as a member of the Bristol based South West Technology Network, continues to work with a team of engineers and software experts in the UK to further develop the technology.

Mr Woodman concluded: "As we own and control every aspect of our telematics product, we can further develop our solution in partnership with the sector to meet fleet demands.”