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MapMechanics Mobile, a practical and accessible wireless planning and management solution for businesses with mobile work forces, makes its first public appearance in important field service market sector at the Service Management Europe show, which runs at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham from 4 to 6 October 2005.
MapMechanics is sharing a stand at the event (no 1410) with NAVTEQ, the leading producer of digital map data for in-vehicle guidance systems and geographic information systems. MapMechanics is a major supplier of NAVTEQ |
data, and will be highlighting recent enhancements it has introduced to the data. These include road-speed data and traffic density data, both of which can help users plan and monitor the deployment of field resources more effectively.
MapMechanics Mobile itself also draws on the benefits of NAVTEQ data. The system integrates with a range of personal navigation products such as AA Navigator, which uses NAVTEQ mapping.
MapMechanics Mobile provides the missing link between office-based routing and scheduling systems and in-vehicle navigation, and is therefore ideal for managing the movements staff such as field service engineers, sales staff and similar mobile workers.
Using well-understood and easy-to-implement wireless mobile data technology, it delivers the location details for each scheduled call point from the office to the mobile worker’s PDA (personal digital assistant), where the data is fed transparently to a satellite navigation system such as TomTom or AA Navigator, and translated into journey instructions.
Having finished each visit, the driver simply presses a “next” button on the PDA, and up comes the route. There is no need to type anything else.
The system can also capture data from the vehicle in real time, enabling office-based staff to react quickly to problems requiring subsequent visits, and plan them more promptly into subsequent schedules. This can be particularly effective for managing field engineers’ movements, since the office-based system can if necessary reschedule the current day’s plan to reflect new service requirements, and deliver new instructions back to the field worker in real time.
Since it can capture accurate vehicle location details from on-board GPS equipment, MapMechanics Mobile also allows operators to track vehicles on screen it can serve as an effective means of maintaining vehicle and driver visibility which are key to bringing benefits such as improved customer service.
According to MapMechanics’ managing director, Mary Short: “We’ve learned from operator feedback that one of the main obstacles to effective use of personal navigation systems is simply the time needed for field workers to type in details of each call (and changes during the day). MapMechanics Mobile automates that download process, helping to reduce delays and improve efficiency.”
MapMechanics Mobile is fully modular. It integrates with call scheduling and work planning systems, and can be refined or customised if required. When needed, MapMechanics’ solution includes TruckStops, the popular routing and scheduling application for allocating calls to engineers, which the company supplies and supports, and which is already established in the field service market. It can also arrange mobile phone airtime contracts.
The mapping technology for the system is delivered by GeoConcept Internet Server, a member of the powerful GeoConcept family of geographic information systems supplied and supported by MapMechanics and already widely used in fleet management and logistics applications. Using low-cost GPRS mobile data technology, operators can poll vehicle for positions at any chosen frequency.
At Service Management Europe, MapMechanics will also be highlighting its latest enhancements for NAVTEQ digital map data. This includes road speed data, which is gathered from a pool of billions of tracked points from vehicles on the move throughout Britain, and this enables users to take better account of real-world road speeds when planning staff movements or establishing territories for them. Traffic density statistics have now also been derived from this information, providing an effective picture of traffic volume on any given stretch of road.
Recent advances in the underlying NAVTEQ data, which will be highlighted by both MapMechanics and NAVTEQ itself, include additional landscape features, ten levels of contour, and outlines for a variety of public and commercial buildings and other locations.
The latest data also highlights a new type of settlement (called “village”), and includes new road attributes such as paved, private, bridge, tunnel and ramp. All points of interest include a street number and name, and address name and type.
MapMechanics specialises in configuring NAVTEQ data and providing it in a variety of formats to make it easy for users to make the best use of the many data attributes in either industry standard or bespoke software. |
