Automatic vehicle location tracking system based on GIS environment

Abstract

Recently, automatic vehicle location (AVL) has become more widely used, affordable and popular than ever before. AVL is used for different tracking purposes, especially for those related to tracking one vehicle or a fleet of vehicles. Tracking system technology was made possible by the integration of three new technologies: navigational technologies such as global positioning system (GPS), database technologies such as geographic information system (GIS) and communication technology such as general packet radio service (GPRS). The proposed software design ‘tracking system’ is used to pinpoint the position, ground speed and fuel level of a given vehicle. This improves fleet management by making it secure and more efficient. The system has the ability to detect the optimal path between source and destination, depending on many factors such as travel time, jam, topography and number of traffic lights. The authors applied greedy techniques (GT) such as Dijkstra's and Kruskal's algorithms to a graph weight depending on the proposed cost function (CF). The geofencing technique is applied to the system based on real coordinates and grants security and safety to the fleet of vehicles. The designed software offers more flexibility in loading digital maps. This proposed software has the ability to visualise the real position of vehicles on maps and to take decisions according to real-time information.