OCT 2010:

In 2010, Vehicle Tracking Solutions paid close attention to the needs of our customers. We asked for your feedback, and used that to improve functionality and usability in Silent Passenger.

Since Silent Passenger is feature rich, many customers may not utilizing it to its full potential. If you've added new staff or would just like a refresher course, we want to remind you that training is always available at no charge! After a 10-20 minute training session, you'll typically be a pro. To schedule a training session (over the computer), click here.

Here's a list of the new features and functionality added to the program this year...many of which were direct contributions from customers!

Reports and Alerts

* Hours of Use Report - displays the hours each vehicle's engine was on
* Events Report - gives you a summary of all events for your vehicles (ignition on/off, accessory activity, initial power applied events and Garmin events)
* Stops with Options Report - incorporates engine idle information and vehicle route with the stops report (with latest firmware update)
* Full email report viewing for non-Silent Passenger users - allows non-users to receive and view Silent Passenger email reports
* Alerts and reports by branch - the ability to run reports and alerts by branches, helpful for companies whose fleet assignments change frequently
* Power Applied Alert - notifies you if a unit is unplugged and plugged back in (with latest firmware update - please contact VTS to unlock this feature)
* Geofence Alert - notifies you when a vehicle enters or exits a geofenced area
* 15 minute intervals for reports - changed intervals from 30 minutes to 15 minutes for increased accuracy
* Report and alert logs - a history of all email reports and alerts sent out for your account

New and Improved Features

* Routing Module - allows you to efficiently route your vehicles using Silent Passenger - import daily stops, display them on the map, and assign them to your vehicles with a few clicks
* Trip odometer - resettable odometer that allows you to keep track of specific mileage
* Improved Driving Directions - allows you to add multiple stops, as well as get directions to and from landmarked locations
* Multiple address lookup results on map - displays multiple addresses on the map
* POI in Address Lookup - look up points of interest, such as "fuel in Deer Park" or "hotel in Huntington" from the Address Lookup window
* Follow vehicle pop-up box - allows you to keep track of a particular vehicle while still monitoring your entire fleet
* Improved Quick Zoom feature - mouse over any vehicle to zoom to it, and click on the vehicle to follow it in map view - housed in the new Quick Zoom menu on the left side of the map
* Improved Garmin Messaging - send individual stops and messages to a Garmin, choose how many messages to show per page in your inbox, sort by date received/sent or contact to/from, filtering of messages by current user
* Geofence shapes - create a Geofence using a circle, square or polygon
* Vehicle notes - display vehicle notes in the vehicle bubble on the Map View page
* Find address by clicking on map - simply click on a location on your map using the "Address Lookup" feature, and the street address will be displayed in the lookup window
* New map controls - housed in the new Map Controls menu, on the left side of Map View
* Improved "Today's Route" breadcrumb trail - now allows you to change the date and time for playback, as well as speed to display the route on the map
* User connection history - administrators may view the last time all users on your account logged into Silent Passenger
* iPhone and Android Apps - access your fleet information on the go from your iPhone and Android phones

Improved Usability

* Paging and sorting on administrative pages - allows you to choose how many records to show per page, as well as sort by various columns in each section
* Search feature on administrative pages - search for a vehicle or driver quickly
* Search option in Manage Landmark feature - search for a landmark name or address in Manage Landmarks instead of scrolling through pages of landmarks
* Search feature in Fleet Status - search for a vehicle, address, or driver within Fleet Status
* Increased fleet status refresh rate to 45 seconds - gives you access to important information, quicker
* Multiple landmark category icons - select a different icon to be displayed on the map for each landmark category
* Remember Me login feature - remembers your username and password so you do not need to enter it each time you log in
* Forgot Password? feature - allows you to reset your password via email
* New vehicle icon for "stopped more than 3 days" - shows a vehicle that has been stopped for more than 3 days with a black box
* Silent Passenger API - Silent Passenger can be integrated with your back office solutions. Call Ryan at 631-492-1147 for more info.