GPS tracking

TMS with Traccar GPS integration

Most small fleets pay a GPS vendor $20–40 per truck per month for a dot on a map, then open a second tab to see what the truck is actually carrying. Truck Dispatch Portal is a TMS with Traccar GPS integration built in: positions live on the same board as the loads, and the GPS part costs nothing on top of the plan.

What Traccar is

Traccar is an open-source GPS tracking server used by fleets and integrators worldwide. It speaks the protocols of hundreds of hardware trackers and ships a free phone client for Android and iPhone. The portal runs a Traccar server for your company account and reads positions from it; you never log in to Traccar itself unless you want to.

There is no per-truck GPS subscription. If a driver reports from the Traccar Client on his phone, the cost is zero. If you prefer a wired tracker in the truck, buy any Traccar-compatible unit once and point it at your server address.

Tracking access per driver

Tracking is switched on per driver, not per fleet. On the driver’s card in Settings you enable tracking, the driver installs Traccar Client and enters the device ID the portal shows him, and from then on his positions arrive while the app is running. A driver who is on leave, or an owner-operator who did not agree to tracking, simply stays switched off — the rest of the board keeps working.

A fleet owner who signs in sees the positions of his own trucks only. A dispatcher sees the trucks of the drivers he runs. The owner sees everyone. The rule is the same as for the money: each role gets its own slice.

Live positions on the board

The dispatcher’s board shows each truck’s last position and when it was reported, next to the load the truck is on and its status — Booked, Picked up, Delivered. When a broker calls to ask where the Camry is, the answer is on the row, not in another app. When you look at an open load on the load board, you can see which of your trucks is already near the pickup.

Positions are read on demand when a screen opens, so a stale phone shows an honest “last seen 2 h ago” rather than a confident dot in the wrong place.

What the broker sees

When a broker awards you a load through the portal, he can follow the truck that is carrying it until it delivers — that truck, that load, and nothing else in your fleet. Together with delivery photos and the receipt the driver took on the phone, this is the proof of delivery most brokers want before they release a check. It also ends the hourly “any update?” messages.

Brokers who are not on the portal see nothing; there is no public tracking link.

Set-up, in order

1. Create your company account (14-day free trial, no card).
2. Add drivers in Settings and switch tracking on for the ones who agreed.
3. Each driver installs Traccar Client, enters the server address and the device ID from his card, and presses Start.
4. Open the board. Positions appear as the phones report; a hardware tracker appears the same way once it is pointed at your server.

Typical time for a fleet of ten: one afternoon, most of it waiting for drivers to install the app.

What it is not

Traccar is not an ELD and the portal does not replace yours: hours of service stay where they are. The integration answers one question — where is the truck that is carrying this load — and puts the answer next to the week the load will be paid in. The rest of the desk is described in trucking dispatch software for small fleets, and the money side in automating driver settlements.