The parked truck that kept racking up kilometers
A truck spends the whole night in the yard. Nobody touches it. In the morning, the tracking platform says it drove thirteen kilometers. For years we ran tracking platforms with devices from several manufacturers and with our own designs. They all reported more or less the same things: position, GPS speed, number of satellites and fix quality, ignition input and, on the better ones, an…
A truck parked in a yard suddenly shows up on a tracking platform kilometers away in the morning. Tracking platforms use GPS to determine a vehicle's position, speed, and other data. However, GPS inaccuracies and obstacles can cause the truck to appear to move even when stationary. Fleet operators often add a filter to clip low speeds and eliminate jumps, but this filter can hide real movement and false alerts.
The filter clips speed below 5 km/h and above 130 km/h, which can mask both slow movement and speeding events. To improve accuracy, fleet operators should use multiple signals, not just GPS speed, to detect movement. Anchor the position when the vehicle parks and ignore jumps within a certain radius. If the position leaves the radius, it is real movement.
Keep raw data and separate zero from unknown. Measure distance using the vehicle's odometer when available, or add up points with good fix quality and indicate the method used in the report.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
