IJCCET International Journal of Computer, Communication and Emerging Technology, Volume 1, Issue 1, April 2012

www.IJCCET.com

Application of Geofencing in Indian Commercial Transportation Industry: A Case Study

Smriti Ashok#1, Anshul Ashok#2
1

smritik_2000@yahoo.com,2anshul@tridentsoftech.com

account (Kpper, et al, 2011).

Abstract This paper attempts to broadly deal with the application of Geofencing through GPS tracking of mobile resources in Indian Commercial Transportation industry and the challenges faced by the companies in absence of such a tracking capability. Some of the challenges listed and the identification of general trend adopted by Indian Transporters, are related with the experience and information collected from interviews with two transportation companies who wish to stay anonymous. Additionally a gap area has been identified in terms of the common approach of many transporters in India to adopt independent applications for each of their requirements and end up using a hoard of applications to manage their entire operations. Theres a dearth of solutions offered on a common platform, an integrated software solution which can provide up-to-theminute visibility and business intelligence pertaining to the cargo and thus help the transporter and their customers to address their business needs. Such a phenomena was a scope of future in the Indian logistics domain until recently but now its benefits have been realized as a tool, empowering them to become all the more efficient and thus offer an promising alternative to the clients who seek quality services, amidst their stiff competition with global giants. Keywords - Geofencing, Vehicle-Tracking, Fleet Management Solution.

13 M an us cri pt rec eiv ed Ap ril 22 , 20 12 .

B. Geofencing The application areas One of the high in demand application of Geofencing technology is tracking and managing a Fleet of commercial vehicles on the move. The Transport & logistics sector uses geofencing to provide improved and more flexible services to their customers. Heavy goods vehicles or delivery vehicles are generally assigned to reach particular points, such as warehouses or customer facilities. These points are called points of interests (POI) (Reclus and Drouard, 2009). Geofencing enables a better organization of goods movement by monitoring the location of vehicles in relation to these POIs. An alert is sent to the server when the carrier deviates from the specified route beyond the defined threshold level enabling a check on the carrier and reducing the situations of delayed deliveries. The same system can also alert the POI when a vehicle is within proximity keeping the customers well informed. Thus these vehicles, captive by their operational nature is ensured to remain inside their designated area through their Geofencing. In addition to this important yet most common application of Geofencing it has various other application areas identified as well which has been duly discussed by scholars at different levels (Ashok and Ashok, 2011). C. Geofencing usefulness for Commercial Transportation Industry Besides allowing transporters to keep a tight control over their fleet and improve upon client satisfaction by delivering them their consignments in time, geofencing allows them to perform the following in their operations: Reduce fuel wastage by keeping a check on straying and Idling trucks as thats completely nonproductive use of fuel for them. Gain an immediate Return on Investment (ROI) by identifying and managing their vehicle utilization and it can prove to be a major factor for the success of any firm that utilizes any number of vehicles. As the info about the exact location of the vehicle and the consignment is available it can be integrated to a base software which can provide information on demand services to customers, branches and agencies, thus enabling speedy and low cost information flow using the existing IT infrastructure. Confirmation of delivery can be instantly updated in the system which makes the anxious consigneeconsignor happy. Tracking report for all transshipments can

I.

INTRODUCTION

A. Geofencing a background A geo-fence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area. It can be dynamically generated - as in a radius around point location or a can be a predefined set of boundaries, like school attendance zones, corporate office area, neighborhood boundaries etc. (Anon. 2012) Geofencing is custom-digitized virtual fences drawn on and around desired locations so that when an activated mobile device crosses the threshold, it stimulates the system and an action occurs. Geofences are created by programming a perimeter into a geofence generator (establishing location) and adding an expressing rule into an application for that perimeter i.e. associating an action with the location. Geofences are commonly drawn as a circle around a point but they can also be drawn as polygon to cater to the desired area (Strout, et al, 2011). When a geo tacked and fenced mobile user enters or exits a geo-fence, the device receives a generated notification. This notification might contain information about the location of the device. The geofence notice might be sent to a mobile telephone or an email
Manuscript received March 30, 2012.

IJCCET International Journal of Computer, Communication and Emerging Technology, Volume 1, Issue 1, April 2012

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be offered. There is also an optional access to geofencing enabled Fleet Management Applications allowing priority customers to access freight waybill status online. In extreme circumstances, the geofence zones can be linked to immobilization equipment within a vehicle which can thus stop the engine dead. During any emergency the driver can generate an SOS message and the engine can again be immobilized. The Transport & logistics sector can use Geofencing to provide improved and more flexible services to their customers, provided they follow right tools and techniques specific to their business requirement. II. GAP AREAS

14 M an us The much sought after Integrated Enterprise System cri will ensure optimum utilization of the system and fulfill pt the rec customer's demand of having visibility of their consignment eiv at all times, it can process data gathered from the GPS ed system of the vehicles and the consignment data (such as Ap LR/GR No., Invoice No., Waybill No., Shipment details, ril Booking Start Time etc. of dispatch details) from customer's 22 existing system to make available real time location data for , all stakeholders involved in the transport network. 20 The system thus generated can seamlessly connect the consignor, 12 consignee and the logistics service provider by effective . flow of information on a real time basis. (Arora, 2012) Based on the above gap areas following objectives have been formulated for the present study.

III. The logistics companies in India are still in the process of transformation from a Person-driven ad-hoc decision making units to a more consistent Process-oriented organizations. This phenomenon applies equally to everyone from owner operated small businesses to large transportation and logistics companies. Logistic Service Providers (LSPs) operate out of a fleet of commercial motor vehicles such as Trucks, Trailers and Van etc. These mobile resources have to operate within assigned geographical areas, ex. Factory/work premises, a city or a wider area. This makes the need to constantly monitor these vehicles and ensure that they remain inside their designated area all the more critical for the LSPs. Commercial Transportation industry has the maximum use of mobile resources and till date their technological capabilities has largely been primitive or in an infancy state only and thus local LSPs have seemed lackluster ones in front of their western counterparts. Despite knowing all the benefits of Tracking and Managing the fleet, Indian players have been somewhat slow in adopting this, primarily because of their infrastructural limitations, environmental conditions and lack of focus to improve worker productivity. Additionally the employees of local LSPs with their limited education and awareness levels see this as offensive with all their movement being tracked and assessed by people behind monitors in a dark room. But as the market bears the impact of globalization, Indian companies are opening up their investments in their mobile resources management solutions to manage costs and increase productivity. Lately, many GPS and Geofencing solutions, indigenous or adapted, are being offered by local service providers. But when the industry starts realizing the benefits of such solutions, they are bound to be more demanding in terms of bringing this array of services on a common platform, evolve the suite as a generic solution for seekers. It is an established fact now that businesses do benefit from such solutions and thus the trend has changed from Whether to invest for this improved fleet control and visibility - TO - Where to start and what type of solutions to deploy. The best criterion for the selection of the right solution to invest in is to look for the one which can scale up when required and adds the most value. A.

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

Identify all the problem areas for the local LSPs

B. Find a generic solution which can take care of most of their problems C. Introduction of SwiftFleet the integrated Logistics Management Solution

IV.

FULFILLMENT OF THE OBJECTIVES

The above objectives have been fulfilled in following manner. A. Identification of the problem areas for the local LSPs For improving effectiveness of Logistics Management, industry needs: 1) Logistical Network 2) Infrastructural Advancements 3) Information Flow and access to Real-Time information 4) Transportation Service Standard Improvement 5) Comprehensive Back-Office solution Integrated with advanced Vehicle Tracking and Information Sharing capabilities In absence of the tools to track their vehicles in real time, drivers could make unwarranted pit stops, deviate from earmarked routes, take extra long hours for rests and still go undetected. Trips from their clients factories to the intended destinations which can be thousands of miles apart often take several days to reach their destination. The consignor has no visibility of the state of the load from the moment it leaves the factory to the time it reaches its intended destination and has to rely only on the driver's word or estimates based on past experience. This is where the utility of vehicle tracking and management comes in. GPS tracking, Geo-fenced route planning integrated with operations management software solution can provide the desired visibility and business intelligence to all the involved parties, ConsignorTransporter-Consignee alike and address their business needs.

IJCCET International Journal of Computer, Communication and Emerging Technology, Volume 1, Issue 1, April 2012

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In India, logistics costs are still higher than those in developed markets it is estimated to be around 13% of the GDP, compared with 8% in the US. Transportation costs account for nearly 40% of production costs. Inventory carrying costs account for approximately 24% of logistics costs, and order processing and administrative costs account for a significant 10% (Olsson, 2005). Stock filing and warehouse management is, in many cases, done manually, which increases administrative costs and adds an element of inefficiency. Having visited the pros and cons of the implementation of Geofencing for the LSPs, discussing the possible implementation methods and taking a look into the overall affairs of the Road transportation players of the logistics industry in a holistic manner we feel that this technology can be of real benefit for the LSPs. It will improve the efficiency of Indian LSPs and correspondingly increase the chances of their candidature being taken more seriously while competing with other global players. But at the same time use of this type of an advanced technology and realizing its true potential can only be possible if this is backed up by other processes being in place and the overall operations being foolproof. So in order to reap the entire benefits of geofencing the organization should put into place proper processes to manage the entire fleet and the overall operations. B. Find a generic solution which can take care of most of their problems The thrust area of our present study is Commercial Transportation which is a constituent of the Logistics segment of the Supply Chain industry. Supply Chain is a network of interconnected businesses involved in the ultimate provision of product and service packages required by end customers. It spans across all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods along the supply chain. Supply Chain Management (SCM) is all about managing the entire chain of supply from point of origin to point of consumption (Lambert, 2008). The term Logistics Management is that part of SCM which plans, implements, and controls the efficient, effective, forward, and reverse flow and storage of goods, services, and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet customers requirements (Costes and Roussat, 2010). In Commercial Transportation and Logistic management, geofencing can be created by programming a perimeter into a geofence generator (establishing a location) and adding a expression rule for that perimeter (associating an action with the location of vehicles), which can help its tracking by its owner (Strout, et al, 2011). This task can be performed by using various tools and techniques like GPS-GIS, GPRS, PDAs, RFID etc, (Ashok and Ashok, 2011) Besides tracking the vehicles, comprehensive Fleet management software enables people to accomplish a series of specific tasks in the management of any or all aspects relating to a company's fleet of vehicles (Arora, 2012). These specific tasks encompass all operations from vehicle

15 M an us acquisition to disposal. Software, depending on cri its pt capabilities, allows functions such as driver and vehicle rec profiling, trip profiling, dispatch, vehicle efficiency, etc. It eiv can provide remote control features, such as Geo-fencing ed and active disabling. Current vehicle diagnostic information Ap can also be related to a management site, depending on the ril type of hardware installed in the vehicles. New platform, 22 based on Fleet management software, is fleet controlling , with higher amount of information available for both drivers 20 and dispatchers of a fleet. In recent times online software 12 platforms are gaining more popularity, users no longer have . to install software and they can access the software through a web browser. C. Introduction of SwiftFleet the integrated Logistics Management Solution SwiftFleet: a Customizable ERP for Indian Commercial Transportation Industry is an N-Tier application offered via the Internet as an on-demand service and is designed to focus on the transportation industry's greatest opportunities of increasing efficiency, productivity and consequential cost-per-kilometer savings. It caters to the fleet management needs of the likes of 3PLs, 4PLs, Courier companies, Transport Contractors and others in the supply-chain segment having a fleet of Owned, Hired or Attached vehicles. It aims at streamlining the fleets Asset Management operations and with a fully managed fleet, Capacity Planning and Utilization can be better handled. With this achieved efficiency more time and money gets saved with increasing levels of operations. As the system is on cloud, it allows stakeholders to get connected and track their shipment real time by simply entering any of the parameters associated with that consignment. The interface can be conveniently extended further to include any stakeholder as and when required by making simple, application level integrations. It is capable of calculating the expected time of arrival (ETA) on the basis of data available on the current location and the destination to be reached analyzed with respect to the average running time and the remaining distance. With this scalable application Transport & Logistics service providers can simplify their back office activities, scale up operations and establish tight control over their freight logistics. It streamlines the fleets management and with a fully managed fleet, Capacity Planning and Utilization can be better handled which helps check pilferage of goods and money. This achieved efficiency results in more time and money being saved with increasing levels of operations of the application using customer.

V.

CASE STUDIES

The three major challenges faced by Indias transportation industry are insufficient knowledge and under-exposure of logistics solution providers, inadequate infrastructure, and ineffective usage of information technology for their day-today operations.

IJCCET International Journal of Computer, Communication and Emerging Technology, Volume 1, Issue 1, April 2012

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In addition to the already known, heard and read about issues and the Gap Areas identified, the authors decided to dig deep and get the real players to tell what they considered as problems for them. Two logistic companies, who wished to remain anonymous, were interviewed and their feedback was also noted along with the already known problems faced by the transporters. Both the transporters interviewed, having a fleet of over 250 trucks, were operating primarily on manual and semiautomated practices only and did not have any proper backoffice software solution in place. They were using computers but to an extent where they fed the data into computers through word, excel and other formats to process various individual documents, analyze entered data and to generate various useful MIS reports. They were duplicating the data capture activity to the be able to perform basic business analysis of the raw data They told that the approach of many transporters in India including them is to opt for an independent application for each of their differing purposes. So we have a situation where there are hoards of similar applications on offer which are being adopted by various transporters and many of them use a multiplicity of such customized solutions for their different needs. One of the transporters carries 4-wheelers as payloads from various Indian Car Manufacturers to their respective car dealers and faced a lot of challenges in delivering the consignment to the consignees on time. They had to deploy a battery of phone equipped resources to keep a manual track of all the vehicles by talking to the drivers. They had to perform this exercise 3-4 times a day and feed in all this data to be able to crunch it all later and derive a status report for their principals. All this was solely dependent upon the drivers version and at times they had to face awkward situations when their vehicles did not turn up at their announced ETA. But when in January 2011, MSIL started installing GPS devices on their transport vehicles things started changing. Currently with only a couple of resources involved, a bigger fleet is being managed swiftly with little or no deviations. And the best part is that the transporter is able to keep its other car manufacturer customers happy as well with this enhanced capability and its improved service offerings. The second transporter interviewed is a carrier of 2wheelers, 3-wheelers and Tractors and they too shared similar concerns and getting to know about the benefits of fleet tracking, they seemed interested in its implementation too. One major concern this transporter raised was of pilferages, undetected and unwarranted expenses. Their view was that we can rope in more business and increase fleet strength to generate more revenues and increase profitability but then theres still a limit to outward growth and we have to be cautious about ramping up our fleet to be able to sustain the growth. But if internally we are not able to put in proper checks and balances and at right places then it will hit our margins only. They felt a pressing need to optimize their operations, improve upon their working in order to maximize their profits. They were able to identify the fallacies in their inter-department working but it was only

16 M an us cri after an in-depth analysis of the operational data and a lot pt later when things actually happened. This took a lot of effort rec on their part and still were not useful for remedial actions as eiv it proved too late in most of the cases. ed They were looking for a solid back-office management Ap system which can help detect any discrepancy at the time of ril occurrence and allow them to take corrective actions and 22 define preventive measures accordingly. , 20 VI. CONCLUSION 12 It is critical for the still maturing Indian Logistics industry . players to recognize that low prices only is not a sure-win strategy in the long run they need to improve their working as well as it has been identified that the most important selection criterion for outsourced logistic partner is core competencies. A survey by the Transport Corporation of India (TCI) and the Management Development Institute (MDI) shows that elogistics is a growing segment. More than 47% of the 130 companies surveyed felt that integrating IT systems with traditional logistics services was important. About 57% of the companies plan to outsource reverse logistics within the next five years, while 54% plan to outsource inventory management and 53% order processing. The TCI-MDI survey showed that the benefits of outsourcing logistics activities range from improved delivery schedules and reduced operating costs to expanded geographic reach and improved operational flexibility. The study also showed that less than 55% of Indian companies subscribe to 3PL services, compared to more than 75% globally, which implies potentially brisk market growth. (Olsson, 2005) Thus the solution that the authors have identified can go a long way in weeding out the problems from their roots and prove to be a generic solution, tailor-made for the Indian Commercial Transportation Industry. This proposed integrated enterprise application SwifFleet will be an on-demand, subscription-based OR fully-owned service on cloud which will manage ones fleet on road, off road - across the nation. It is intended to seamlessly connect the consignor, consignee and the logistics service provider by effective flow of information on a real time or close to real time basis.

REFERENCES
[1] [2] Anon. 2012, Geo-fence, available at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo-fence Arora, V., Mobile resource management: Transforming India's transport sector, Article Dated: 22/05/2012,Available at: http://www.geospatialworld.net/index.php?option=com_content&view =article&id=24110 Ashok S. and Ashok A., 2011, Application of Geofencing in Road Transportation - Scope and Limitations, National Conference on Recent Advancements in Computer Engineering (RACE 11) (ISBN No. 978-93-803118-3-8), November 26, 2011, Poornima Group of Colleges, Jaipur Costes N.F. and Roussat, C.2010, Supply Chain Integration:Views from a Logistics Service Provider, Supply Chain Forum: an International Journal, Vol.12 n2 2011 Kpper, A., Bareth, U. and Freese, B. 2011, Geofencing and Background Tracking The Next Features in LBSs, INFORMATIK 2011- Informatik Schafft Communication, 4th Workshop on Services, Platforms, Innovations and Research for new Infrastructures in

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IJCCET International Journal of Computer, Communication and Emerging Technology, Volume 1, Issue 1, April 2012

www.IJCCET.com Telecommunications (SPIRIT 2011), 4-7 October, Techische University, Berlin. [6] Lambert, D.M., 2008, Supply Chain Management: Processes, Partnerships, Performance, Supply Chain Management Institute, Sarasota, Florida , USA, pp-431. [7] Olsson, J. 2005, India: The logistics boom continues Article Dated: 11/9/2005, Author: Jimmy Olsson / EFT Research Available at: http://logisticsmanagementandsupplychainmanagement.wordpress.com/200 7/04/22/india-the-logistics-boom-continues/ [8] Reclus, F. and Drouard, K, 2009, Geofencing for Fleet & Freight Management, Intelligent Transport Systems Telecommunications, (ITST), 9th International Conference, 2009, pp 353 356. [9] Strout, A, Schneider, M. and Emerson, B. J. 2011, Location Based Marketing For Dummies, John Wiley Sons, New Jersey. Dr. Smriti Ashok a.k.a Dr. Smriti Kumari, was born and raised in Patna, Bihar, India, graduated in 1995 from Patna University. She received her Master of Arts and Master of Philosohy degrees in Geography from Delhi School of Economics. She earned her Master of City Planning in 2002 from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. In 2008 she received her doctorate from Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. From 2007-2009 she worked as Senior Research Associate in Creative Research Group Kolkata. In 2009 she joined as Assistant Professor in IIS University, Jaipur, India where she is continuing at present. She is the author of some technical papers. She is recipient of UGC-NET and Institute fellowship to pursue Master of City Planning and PhD in IIT Kharagpur. Dr. Ashok is the life member of Indian Society of Remote Sensing, Dehradun and National Association of Geographer Association, Delhi. She also is a recipient of the following fellowships and awards from various institutes and organizations, ex. National Educational Testing (Eligibility for Lectureship) award, University Grant Commission, Delhi, June 1999, Urban and Regional Planning. Institute fellowship, IIT Kharagpur, March, 2002 to September, 2006 Short-term Fellowship, Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, ICCF project, Indian institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, November 2003 to January 2004. Institute fellowship, IIT Kharagpur, for MCP (Master of City planning) July 2000 to January 2002. Anshul Ashok, an IT professional who holds degrees of Masters in Public Administration & Computer Application and is further pursuant of another Masters degree in Business Administration with majors in Marketing. He is Director Operations at Trident Softech, a Jaipur based IT solutions provider company, with special interests in the solutions developed and being offered in the Logistics domain.

17 M an us cri pt rec eiv ed Ap ril 22 , 20 12 .