What is geofencing?
· Kelvin Oyugi, Technology & Telematics Expert · 2 min read
A geofence is a boundary drawn on a map that a tracking system treats as meaningful: when a vehicle crosses it, the system records the crossing and can alert you.
The boundary is not physical and there is nothing at the roadside. It exists only in the platform — a shape drawn around a depot, a customer site, a quarry, a route corridor or a border post — and the system compares the vehicle's reported position against it.
What makes it useful is that it converts a continuous stream of positions into a small number of events a person can act on. Nobody watches a map all day. An alert that says a vehicle left the yard at 04:12, or entered a customer site it has no delivery for, is something a supervisor can respond to. A day of position reports is not.
Geofences are also how a system distinguishes normal from abnormal without anyone having to define "normal" in the abstract. A fuel drop inside the fuel station geofence is a fill. The same drop on a quiet stretch of road at night is not. A container leaving a bonded corridor matters in a way the same movement inside the yard does not.
They are configured per operation rather than shipped as defaults, because the boundaries that matter to a cargo operator running to the port are not the ones that matter to a school. As routes, customers and staff change, the geofences and permissions have to change with them, which is part of what ongoing support covers.
Geofence crossings depend on the vehicle reporting its position, so like everything else in a telematics system they are subject to network and GPS availability.
Read more: Vehicle tracking