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Hardware trackers on your trucks

Register a GPS tracker on a truck so its positions reach the customer's live map, the position history and the trail of the open job.

For
OwnerAdministratorDispatcher
Hosting
Any hosting
Devices
Server
Business
TowingTaxi and livery

Checked against Pop Dispatch 0.1.0

A hardware tracker sends the truck's position even when the driver's phone is off. You will be able to tie a tracker to a truck and see its positions on the customer's live map.

Before you start #

  • You need the owner or manager role to register a tracker. The tracker (or the small program that forwards its messages) signs in as a driver login and sends to Pop Dispatch over your public address.
  • Each tracker has a device id, a short name printed on it or set in its settings (up to 64 characters).

Steps #

  1. Choose the truck's id from the Trucks list.
  2. Register the tracker with the truck: send the device id and the truck id to Register a hardware tracker on a truck (POST /gps/trackers). Registering the same device id again moves it to another truck.
  3. Point the tracker at Pop Dispatch. It sends either an NMEA RMC sentence to /gps/nmea or an OsmAnd query to /gps/osmand. Add the device_id field to each message.
  4. Pop Dispatch decodes each message, stores the position with the source marked as hardware, moves the truck and, when a driver on shift uses that truck, moves the driver's position too.
  5. While that driver has a tow call or a taxi trip open, each position also joins the trail of that job. The customer's map draws the trail.
  6. Open GET /gps/trackers to list the registered trackers and their trucks.

What stays private #

The customer page shows a position only while the job is open and the last position is under 15 minutes old. A customer page drops every tracker position when the job ends.

Technical details
  • POST /gps/nmea takes sentence and device_id. POST /gps/osmand takes query and device_id. The answer holds lat, lng, speed_knots and stored. stored is false for an unregistered device id; the message is still decoded.
  • Each stored message adds a row to position_history (source hardware) and a numbered sequence for the device, and updates the truck's last position.
  • Job trails are kept in job_position_trail and follow the GPS retention period in the privacy settings.

If something goes wrong #

  • stored is false: register the device id first.
  • No such truck. (404): the truck id belongs to a vehicle outside your own fleet.
  • A tracker position shows on the map but not on the customer page: the truck's driver is off shift or has no open job.