Alamein’s solutions enhance existing office-based systems by adding remote worker connectivity, seamlessly integrating our hosted job workflow and messaging capabilities.

We have established close working partnerships with a number of booking and despatch system providers in our chosen market sectors to provide highly flexible, customised solutions to our joint customers.

Overview

TrakSave is an externally hosted mobile communications service, providing built-in resilience through a dual data centre managed infrastructure. It enables real-time information exchange between fleet controllers and drivers. TrakSave delivers job despatch & progress updating, field data capture, real-time 2-way messaging, vehicle tracking & integrated satellite navigation.

The TrakSave platform provides booking and despatch functionality or can integrate with a customer’s 3rd party booking system though a simple flat-file interface, providing real & immediate benefit to the fleet operation. Operating on the GPRS mobile network, TrakSave offers UK and international coverage on an affordable pay-as-you-go basis. A range of consumer or rugged mobile data terminals (MDTs) is supported, which may be vehicle fitted or hand-held. The office IT requirement is minimal: a Windows PC and a broadband Internet connection.

TrakSave is a comprehensive and flexible platform, based on fully customisable work-flows and user interface interactions.

Job Despatch & Updates

Job information is transmitted to the driver’s MDT directly from the booking system; this carries the details entered by the despatch staff. As the driver progresses the job he is able to return progress updates such as picked up, on-route, delivered etc. via the simple touch-screen interface. All updates are time- and geo-stamped, enabling full historic audit trail. These updates are displayed automatically in real-time on the despatch screen of the booking system.

Jobs may be managed as single or multiple entities, with concurrent work-flow, and can be recalled or modified as necessary via the booking system.

The driver’s terminal application is designed to be easy to use, simplifying training and providing context sensitive buttons clearly displaying the next required and allowed action or option.

Real-time 2-way Messaging

Ad-hoc messages may be exchanged between the fleet and office to deal with queries and exceptions; these can be sent to individuals or groups of drivers directly from the booking system, or generated as required by the driver and sent to the booking system. To save typing time, frequently used pre-defined canned messages can be configured on the driver’s MDT.

Where a hand-held MDT is used, the driver remains in contact for job and message exchange whenever he is outside of the vehicle carrying the MDT.

Field Data Capture

Information can be easily captured by the driver on the MDT via a number of methods including user-defined forms (text, numbers or hand-written), signature capture and bar-code reading, or through attached devices such as credit card readers.

Satellite Navigation

The TrakSave client application is integrated to the satellite navigation (Sat-Nav) software installed on the MDT, enabling an address included within the job to be selected by the driver; the Sat-Nav then automatically guides the driver to the destination with audible and visual prompts to the selected address.

The Sat-Nav product provided is commercially available software; Alamein’s current approved supplier is Sygic.

Tracking

GPS capability on the MDT allows tracking information (location, direction and speed) to be relayed via Alamein servers to two tracking interfaces; a PC-based operational view of the whole fleet for use by a fleet controller, and a web-based view accessed via the Alamein secure website.

Optionally Alamein can provide a fitted in-vehicle Blackbox unit, allowing high-performance tracking using fixed external antennas, and tracking of the vehicle  even when the ignition is switched off. The deployment of a fixed Blackbox unit enables additional functionality, including the collection and analysis of vehicle diagnostic and driver performance information.

Alarm events can be configured to capture data relating to speeding, out-of-hours use and entering or leaving defined areas.

The current job status of each vehicle is displayed on the mapping system by use of coloured icons along with speed, location and vehicle/driver identification. International maps are available for companies that operate beyond the UK.

The vehicle location information can also be relayed to the booking system to enable, for example, closest-vehicle despatch. All vehicle movements are archived allowing later analysis and playback of driven routes, location and speeds for management purposes.

Optionally, a website is available to view selected vehicles or assets, that may be offered to 3rd parties to track consignments or passengers by job reference number.

Captured data can be used to generate Management Reports including but not limited to Utilisation Reports (time and distance measures of vehicle usage), Speed Reports (maximum and average speed recorded against location), Geo-fence Reports (use of a vehicle outside of a defined authorised area).

Alamein’s tracking function includes the use of dynamically assigned location triggers, or geo-fences, enabling actions (alarms, customer notifications, job status updates etc.) to be automatically triggered as geographic areas are entered or exited.

Alamein’s mobile data technology has wide-ranging applications that will help to make the sales force’s day run smoothly and efficiently. From logging on in the morning, it can provide a list of sales meetings for the coming day, maximising efficient travel arrangements between jobs and providing satellite navigation to improve journey times.

During meetings, sales executives can access data regardless of their location, so in a customer’s office or workplace or at an agreed meeting place, making it easier to complete transactions and close the deal there and then.

Electronic signatures can be taken when the deal is complete, and the automatic relay of data back to the office cuts down on extensive paperwork, removing the need for the salesperson to fill in countless order forms at the end of the working day. Between meetings, new sales calls can be made, backed up with relevant data, allowing more appointments to be fixed, and possibly followed up, without the need for a return trip to the office, or a follow-up call later in the day.
Two-way communication allows the sales executive to relay data back to the office, allowing managers to see at a glance the results of the day in the field, how each salesperson has done and what follow-up action may need to be taken.

In essence, Alamein’s technology allows sales people to use time more efficiently, to close deals quicker and thereby reduce the cost of the selling process and increase cash flow. It also means your most experienced salespeople can do more selling in less time. As time and efficiency become more crucial to the effective running of a business, mobile data technology offers the perfect solution.

In these times of flexible working conditions the number of mobile workers continues to increase, but the need for them to remain ‘in touch’ with the office remains a priority. However, managing this communication channel can be a logistical nightmare – a GPRS-linked, hand-held computer could offer the solution as it is a cost-effective tool that can be used safely and legally.

“These systems puts the workers in control but provides management with all the information needed to assure health and safety compliance,” commented Aston Clarke, Director. “Companies can use the application of mobile computing to automate the auditing process, allowing automatic, real time gathering of data images and approval signatures that are relayed back to the control system – making this information immediately available for checking and for onward transmission and sharing where necessary.”

Aston went on to say that as well as health and safety, the same technology has applications in asset management, property maintenance, vehicle maintenance and construction. “For example, applied to maintenance and repair, jobs can be received ‘live’ via the hand-held unit, complete with automated job sheet, and the worker can respond accordingly, with all relevant data being stored or transmitted for analysis and records.

This not only maintains communication but also registers work actions without the need for additional paperwork giving an auditable trail that is also stored centrally. Speed and efficiency can be greatly improved and administration workload significantly reduced.”

Designed specifically for employers that use vehicle fleets – couriers, taxi companies, car ambulances –
TrakSave uses ‘black box’ style technology to allow managers to check the locations of vehicles at any time of the day or night.

“We are launching this at a time when all businesses are looking very carefully at expenditure and examining any outlay to be certain that it will bring rewards,” said Alamein Director, Aston Clarke. “Saving money in these sectors usually means reducing mileage – therefore minimising fuel and running costs by careful route planning and monitoring usage are the most obvious areas for cost reduction. ‘TrakSave’ gives fleet operators the ability to view all vehicles and identify exact locations – allowing the nearest worker to be despatched to any given job, therefore creating a more time and cost-efficient service to benefit both the employer and the customer.”

TrakSave provides real-time reporting for managers to signal breaches of predefined working regulations – for instance, exceeding speed limits, using the vehicle out of work hours or driving in pre-selected geographic areas.

“The solution is flexible and adaptable and can be tailored to meet the needs of individual customers,”added Aston. “It’s easy to install and will function with most existing operating systems. Thorough testing of TrakSave has shown a significant reduction of ‘empty’ miles and improved customer service as travel times can be accurately estimated – we are delighted with the results.”

TrakSave can be transferred between vehicles, comes with a 3-year warranty and full support package as standard.

Alamein, based in Bracknell, exhibited at the Show with client, Softsol, who was demonstrating the booking and management system, ‘TaxiMATE’ – which is fully integrated with Alamein’s Messaging Navigation and Tracking Service (MNTS).

“The show this year was surprisingly buoyant, even compared to previous years, with pre-registrations up 18% on 2008,” commented Alamein’s Martin Hall. “Rather than discussing tough times, most companies were talking of growth and new business initiatives, with a surprising number of start-up companies.

“We were delighted that Softsol received so many visitors to its stand – up 40% on last year. Many people actively sought them out, proving that they are an established player in the Private Hire industry. Owners and operators realise there is a real need for not only an intuitive booking system, but for powerful driver and customer management reporting to reduce administration, improve customer service and stay in full control of the business. We were encouraged as many of these enquiries were from firms already using systems from some of the more high profile providers.”

Alamein also partnered another company at the exhibition.
“We were involved with the launch of the ‘iTaxiNet’ booking and management system and were delighted to see that this also had a very high level of interest from its target market of smaller operators,” continued Martin. “People were particularly keen to see the online quote engine – showing that getting a price for a journey and booking a taxi online is something that appeals to companies and customer alike. And the imminent release of their online version of the iTaxiNet booking and management system also interested companies keen to utilise existing PCs with just a broadband connection, rather than invest in new hardware.”

Both these products use Alamein’s integrated Messaging Navigation and Tracking Service (MNTS) to capture data on PDAs and deliver that data into their booking and scheduling systems. It was obvious that this system was the popular choice for companies looking to streamline job despatch and administration, whilst also focussing on the all important customer service.

Improved fuel efficiency using existing vehicles means more efficient route planning. This can be very difficult, but help is at hand in the form of ‘TrakSave – a vehicle telematics device (blackbox) which is connected to the operators office system and not only provides the ongoing data to achieve journey efficiency, but also enables a full fleet tracking system.

Aston Clarke, Alamein Director, explains…
“The critical issue facing transport operators wishing to claim the increased BSOG is to reduce average fuel consumption (km/litre) and importantly, prove this performance. Their challenge is to achieve this utilising existing vehicles with inherently the same running performance.” He continued: “To do this, efficiencies must be sought and these must be relevant to ‘engine running’ conditions.The initial target areas are to identify and eradicate ‘inefficient’ driving habits and excessive periods of idling.”

Fred Rule, Chairman of Keep Mobile (Community Transport) and Thames Valley Operators, has been working with Alamein over the last 3 years to integrate mobile technology solutions to their office systems and has already seen improvements.

“Alamein’s MNTS system has saved hours in administration, as paper work has been minimised as we no longer have paper forms for journey schedules, entering pick-up and drop-off times, fares paid and due. This information is now entered into the hand held PDAs, and journeys eligible for the existing BSOG automatically fed into the accounting system.”

Fred added; “The BSOG payment is currently based on qualifying journeys, but in the next two years this will also be measured on the efficiency of the vehicles; each Community Transport organisation will need to demonstrate an increase in litres/kilometre of 6% in order to claim an extra 3% of BSOG rebate. We will be working with Alamein to help us to measure our vehicles fuel consumption, monitor our drivers’ behaviour and even improve their driving style, to not only meet these new BSOG requirements, but also extend the lifetime of our buses.”

Thames Valley Operators are confident that Alamein will help them achieve and demonstrate the improved efficiencies required to secure the increased BSOG in 2010.

Alamein has been working with UK Chauffeur Network to improve its green credentials to become part of the Green Ride Global network by supplying and maintaining its cost-effective IT tracking solution – TrakSave.

TrakSave is designed specifically for organisations that use vehicle fleets – chauffeurs, couriers, taxi companies, car ambulances – and uses ‘black box’ style technology to allow managers to check the locations of vehicles at any time of the day or night. This gives real-time reporting to allow for efficient route planning and job allocation – a crucial way to reduce mileage, and therefore use less fuel to cut costs and become more environmentally friendly.

“Our solution has given UK Chauffeur Network the ability to monitor journeys and identify opportunities to improve the efficiency of their fleet,” explained Alamein Director, Aston Clarke. TrakSave gives exact locations of vehicles, allowing managers to allocate jobs to the nearest driver – therefore creating a more time and cost-efficient service to benefit both the employer, the customer and the environment.”

UK Chauffeur Network has been delighted with the performance of the system and CEO, Lance Dooley believes it has helped considerably to achieve their ambitious and aggressive environmental programme.

“We have created a Corporate Environmental Policy that addresses the immediate and long-term environmental impacts of all aspects of our business,” he said. “Through our partnership with Green Ride Global, we have implemented an Environmental Management system that is ISO 14001 compliant and not only includes strategies to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from fuel consumption, but also from electricity use, supply purchases, waste disposal and employee travel.

“Our goal is to achieve a 20% reduction in emissions over the next 5 – 10 years. We are proud to announce that we have already made a saving of 15% on fuel costs – thanks to TrakSave – and have also seen improved driving skills, as drivers know that vehicles are tracked and they are now more conscious of speed limits and their personal mileage.”

Of course, this brings logistical problems – the need to balance the number of available drivers with the number of customers, quite tricky, as managers are only directly in control of their staff levels.
So, instead of turning away passengers when demand is great and all cars are working, wouldn’t it be a good idea to be able to send them a taxi anyway?

Alamein, one of the leading names in mobile technology for the private hire sector, has devised a package that will help to overcome these difficulties. Director, Aston Clarke, explained: “Rarely do operators find they have an equal volume of available work to match spare capacity and they do not want to incur increased overheads to cater for that ’just in case’ scenario.
“To overcome this, we believe that by joining forces with other operators in the vicinity, they can service the needs of their customers – but without compromising their own client base. This is where ‘Fleet Connect’ comes in. With our integrated tracking and messaging systems installed in many fleets this enables the ability to automatically share jobs – therefore more efficiently meet demand by utilising other operator’s spare capacity and improve customer service levels.
“Fleet Connect gives a secure link and provides the relevant pieces of information without compromising confidentiality, including requests to other operators, acknowledged receipt of the job, transmission of the booking to be fulfilled, confirmation that passenger is on board and journey completed. All of this is achieved in one seamless solution.”

Aston went on to say that with ‘Fleet Connect’, Alamein is simply facilitating sharing between fleets by connecting them together and that individual operators remain in control, each dictating their own levels of sharing and information.
“It makes sense for operators to do what they can to maintain market share and meet the needs of customers. In this economic climate it’s ridiculous to turn business away!”

Life is hectic enough without having to worry about managing lots of suppliers that provide many different mobile solutions and services to your company. It can soon become a time consuming and difficult to manage situation.

When it comes to providing mobile solutions for fleet operators such as data despatch solutions, online bookings and fleet management systems, Alamein is an expert provider that can supply all of the above solutions, using the latest innovative technologies.

Alamein offer the most complete range of mobile solutions available to enable organisations to keep in total control of their fleets. Their range of mobile solutions provides complete support for the modern fleet operator.

Message Navigation and Tracking Service (MNTS) is a mobile communications service that allows you to simply manage a geographically dispersed fleet, the main features being;

• Job Despatch and Messaging
• Field Data Capture
• Resources Tracking and Vehicle Guidance

To accompany the ‘Message Navigation and Tracking Service’ (MNTS) are two new solutions ‘Customer Connect’ and ‘Fleet Connect’, both are ground-breaking new fleet products.

Customer Connect is an Online Bookings Management System. It creates a seamless and professional service between the customer, the operator and the driver. This solution gives the customer more control allowing them to place, modify and monitor the status of their bookings through your website. Customer Connect allows the fleet operator to focus on improving customer relationships, efficiently manage fleet resources, win repeat business and reduce time spent on paperwork and administration.

On a different level there is another challenge that fleet operators face and that is, how they balance their workloads against their capacity.

Fleet Connect facilitates the sharing of resources between fleets, a great solution for when you are working to your full capacity and cannot take anymore work on. Additionally, you can fill spare capacity with work from your Fleet Connect partners, be this for drivers sitting idle, or returning empty from a long distance journey. Simply log on to Fleet Connect, and share jobs with chosen operators. Use their spare capacity or increase your bookings when other operators have excess demand. Fleet Connect is secure and allows you to remain in control of what information you want to share and how you wish to share it.

Completing the full spectrum of mobile solutions is TrakSave. TrakSave is a high value vehicle tracking solution that enables fleet managers to see where their vehicles are 100% of the time. Based on ‘black box’ technology, TrakSave gives you total transparency of your fleet adding value to your services. It tracks the vehicles in your fleet – you know where they are day or night, the pre-programmed alarms register if a vehicle is speeding or leaving defined areas and records the out of hours usage. TrakSave gives you strong ‘green credentials’. The real time data overlaid on street or satellite maps allow you to pinpoint the individual locations of your entire fleet. Cut down on ‘empty miles’ and reduce vehicle fuel consumption by managing your fleet more effectively.
Whatever the size of your fleet, or sector you are in, you could benefit significantly from the range of Alamein mobile solutions available.

Alamein has a solution to increase your fleet efficiency and manage its effectiveness, improve customer service levels, benefit from cost savings on fuel and improve communications.