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Rand McNally is a flexible fleet management system that helps users track and manage fleets seamlessly through its user-friendly dashboard. The software offers a range of advanced tools like customizable drag-and-drop alerts, AI-powered driver safeguarding, theft prevention, and customizable packages, making it a solid option for larger fleets with more specific needs.
Unlike some of the best fleet management software, Rand McNally will help you identify key areas to reduce fleet costs, which will be a boon to companies with an eager eye on their bottom line. The solution isn’t perfect though, with many customers online complaining about software glitches, and no round-the-clock support available to assist users outside of working hours, unlike alternatives such as Samsara and Verizon.
There’s loads to explore when it comes to Rand McNally, from its custom pricing structure to its wealth of hardware options. Scroll down to learn if the fleet management tool is right for you, or fill in our one-minute form if you’d like receive tailored quotes from the leading providers.
In this guide:
Pros
- 6-month initial contract is shorter than annual average
- Geofencing alerts built into the platform
- Traffic alerts to help drivers adjust routes in real time
Cons
- No custom locations
- No iOS mobile app
Rand McNally Vehicle Tracker: At a Glance
We round up some key factors about Rand McNally, so you can see if it’s a good fit for you straight away.
- Flexible pricing: Rand McNally’s customizable features and flexible pricing structure make it a good fleet management solution for companies with complex or specific requirements.
- No iOS App: Rand McNally offers a DriverConnect Andoird app, a Rand McNally Manager iPad app, but there currently is no iOS mobile app available.
- Hardware: Rand McNally sells hardware and software separately allowing companies to customize their package to suit them, and prices are available on request.
- Cancellation: Rand McNally’s cancellation period is slightly shorter than with other fleet management providers, with the platform giving users ten days to cancel, compared to the standard 30-day window.
- Support: Rand McNally’s help and support channels are only open from Monday to Friday 7 am to 6 pm CST, but the provider does have a useful knowledge center to help users resolve queries anytime.
- Installation: Companies install Rand McNally’s software themselves, but the process is relatively straightforward and quick, even for beginners.
Rand McNally Key Features
If you’re looking for a vehicle tracker with stacks of useful capabilities, Rand McNally won’t let you down. The provider’s high-tech feature catalog even gives industry leaders like Verizon and Samsara a run for their money. Scroll down to learn more about Rank McNally’s stand-out features.
Fleet management
Rand McNally’s real-time GPS insights take fleet tracking and management to a different level. The system keeps you informed about where your assets are at all times, lets you review their movement history, gives you alerts about when they leave certain locations and unlocks important data points like location, speed, and engine data.
Rand McNally lets you view a wide range of GPS data from its user-friendly dashboard. Source: Rand McNally
Managers can even replay trips on the interactive map and see which vehicles are moving and stationed in real-time, thanks to the detailed information recorded by the tracker. Viewing these insights is easy too, as RandMcNally’s dashboard is stripped-back, intuitive, and a lot more modern than competitors like Omnitracs.
Fuel management
For those serious about cutting back costs and reducing their fleet’s carbon footprint, Rand McNally’s fuel management features
The Rand Platform clearly displays fuel usage insights and lets users track fuel-pattern data and fuel consumption per vehicle. The system’s fuel management system also lets you track poor driving practices, engine performance, and idle vehicle time, to help you identify the root cause of abnormal fuel consumption.
If cost saving is your top priority, you can also use Rand McNally’s vehicle trackers to glean insights into operational costs, fuel economy data, and potential cost-saving areas. With leading vehicle trackers like Verizon lacking such targeted economical features, Rand McNally is one of the best options out there for companies serious about keeping costs low.
Alerts
Rand McNally issues a wide range of alerts to increase fleet safety and efficiency. To prevent vehicles from being held at a standstill, the vehicle tracker offers real-time traffic updates so drivers can avoid congested areas. The system also notifies users about abrupt changes to weather, and lets them overlay their fleet map with a weather map to see how their fleet may be affected in different areas.
Rand McNally also lets you create custom alerts to be transmitted by SMS, email, or push notifications for specific events like vehicle location, asset delivery, fault codes, and more.
Predictive maintenance
Carrying out predictive maintenance is one of the most important parts of managing a fleet. Rand McNally offers a range of features to lengthen the lifespan of vehicles and protect driver safety, including fault code alerts. Whenever critical faults occur, fleet drivers and managers receive alerts via SMS and email, and users are also able to report active faults at any time.
RandMcNally’s Rand Platform lets you set up automatic maintenance alerts when services are due. Source: Rand McNally
Rand McNally also lets you automate service reminders when vehicle mileage and workloads hit a certain limit, and when critical services are due. These service reminders only take seconds to set up, and are able to provide managers with long-term peace of mind.
Driver safety
Rand McNally goes above and beyond when it comes to driver protection. The provider’s Rand Video Telemative (RVT) solution uses AI-powered Machine Vision to automatically detect and alert drivers to risky behavior. The system then gives the driver a chance to correct themselves before capturing the footage.
To ensure driving standards are kept high across the board, managers are able to access this driver footage remotely, including live on-the-road and incident videos. Aside from video footage, managers receive daily driver analytics daily, and these reports can be customized depending on their chosen metrics.
Fleet managers can use Rand McNally to access footage of driver events like incidents remotely. Source: Rand McNally
Security
Rand McNally takes a number of measures to keep customer data secure. All company devices use encryption to protect data when it’s being stored or transmitted. The provider also uses secure protocols like HTTPS for internet-based communications, to lower the risk of data breaches and man-in-the-middle attacks.
Rand McNally’s also offers theft prevention capabilities to protect the lifespan of your vehicles or assets. In the event of a theft, users are able to track stolen assets, retrieve location and history data, and receive alerts if assets don’t arrive at key locations in time.
Rand McNally Help and Support
For customers looking to resolve queries, Rand McNally lets you get in touch via an online support form or their phone lines. The provider’s customer support channels are open from Monday to Friday 7 am to 6 pm CST. This window is quite limited, especially compared to vehicle trackers like Samsara and Azuga which offer support 24/7. Unfortunately, this makes Rand McNally less for fleets that may require hands-on assistance outside of traditional business hours.
However, the vehicle does list product manuals, product FAQs, and repair and warranty information on its website. The product’s help center is also available round the clock, providing a lifeline to customers needing to resolve simple queries quickly.
How Much Does Rand McNally Cost?
Rand McNally requires customers to purchase hardware and software separately. You pay for the specific hardware you need up-front, and then pay a monthly subscription fee on top to activate the software. This mix-and-match pricing model makes Rand McNally a lot more flexible than other vehicle trackers, as you only need to pay for what you need, and no more.
Rand McNally software costs
The price for Rand McNally’s fleet management software – the Rand McNally – will depend on your fleet’s specific needs. The service doesn’t list subscription prices publically, so for pricing information, you’ll need to contact a member of their sales team or fill out a form on their website.
While Rand McNally’s pricing system is opaque, several customer reviews mention how competitive the service is, suggesting that the provider’s costs fall well within the industry average.
Rand McNally hardware costs
Hardware costs will ultimately depend on the size and unique requirements of your fleet. However, here’s a summary of how much individual hardware devices cost from Rand McNally’s Store.
TND Tablets
Rand McNally tablets cost anywhere between $329.99 for the provider’s 5″ TND 550 Truck GPS tablet, to $799.99 for the 10″ TND Tablet 1050. The fleet management provider also sells refurbished devices on its website for companies serious about lowering overheads, like the refurbished TND 750 tablet that’s currently available for as little as $139.99.
Rand McNally’s TND 550 GPS tracker has a compact 5″ inch screen, and is available for $329.99. Source: Rand McNally
ELD Logging Devices
Rand McNally launched Vehicle Link, a new electronic logging device (ELD) in 2022. Like its software packages, prices for this ELD are custom, but according to models being sold independently online businesses can expect to spend around $290 per ELD tracker.
Rand McNally’s ELD logger syncs up seamlessly to your smartphone or tablet to help you manage your fleet. Source: Rand McNally
Extra accessories
Rand McNally also sells a wide range of hardware accessories. Vehicle link cables cost anywhere from $49 for cables with 6 to 14 pins, to $69 for Vehicle Gateway cables.
The fleet management service also sells brackets and mounts for their tablets, and prices for these range from $24.99 for suction cup and universal mounts, to $49.99 for magnetic mounts.
Rand McNally’s 740 Magnetic Slice and Mount Combo secures TND 740 devices to fleet dashboards, and costs $49.99
Does Rand McNally offer a free plan?
No, Rand McNally doesn’t let users get started with its fleet management system for free. However, if you want to test out the software before you commit to a contract, the provider does offer a one-month free plan where you can test out all of its main features, including real-time tracking, fuel monitoring, and more.
What Do Customers Think of Rank McNally?
According to customer review sites, most users seem pretty satisfied with Rand McNally’s fleet management service, but opinions are mixed. The service received 3.5/5 stars on Software Advice from a total of 16 reviews, and 3.3/5 stars on Best Buy from 15 reviews.
Many customers praised the service for being easy to install, and for offering reliable help and support when they were faced with issues – which is always a good sign. However, as we noted earlier on, the customer service hours are more limited than other fleet management platforms like Samsara, only running Monday to Friday between 7 am and 6 pm.
However, users were also quick to point out that the software doesn’t always update its map information (whereas providers like Motive have a 1-3 second map refresh time) and some customers complained that the system was prone to glitches and crashes.
Rand McNally Installation
Rand McNally has a self-instillation setup, but rest assured it’s very simple. When installing ELDs, you need to locate the 9-pin or 6-pin diagnostic port in your vehicle, also known as the JBUS port, which will be typically found under your dashboard. Then, you need to insert the ELD into the diagnostic port until the pins align and the light flashes.
You then need to download Rand McNally’s Rand Platform and connect the app to your ELD device. After you’ve paired your device, and finished the configuration process, you’re good to go.
We take our impartial research and analysis seriously, so you can have complete confidence that we're giving you the clearest, most useful recommendations.
After conducting an initial exploration to identify the most relevant, popular, and established tools in the market, we put them through their paces with a research framework designed in-house to see their real strengths and weaknesses. In this case, we analyzed 20 fleet management products across 51 different areas of investigation.
Based on years of market and user needs research, we've established a fleet management testing methodology that scores each product in six core assessment areas and six additional subcategories, covering everything from the driver management features to value for money and customer support, as well as much more.
Our main testing categories for fleet management systems are:
- Price: the cost associated with using the fleet management software, including upfront costs, subscription fees, hardware costs (if applicable), and any additional charges for advanced features or add-ons.
- Tracking: the core functionality of the fleet management software, which involves monitoring and tracking the location and movements of vehicles in real-time, such as GPS tracking, route optimization, and geofencing.
- Driver Management: the features and tools provided by the fleet management software to manage and monitor driver activities. This can include driver behavior monitoring, driver performance reports and driver identification.
- Vehicle Management: the functionalities that allow for the efficient management and maintenance of vehicles, such as vehicle health monitoring and maintenance scheduling.
- Product Features: the additional functionalities and capabilities offered by the fleet management software beyond basic tracking and management, such as real-time alerts and notifications or driver routing and dispatching.
- Support: the resources, assistance, and guidance provided by the fleet management software company to users, including phone support, email or chat support, and online forums.
When it comes to calculating a product's final score, not all testing and research categories are weighted evenly, as we know some aspects matter more to our readers than others, which are merely "nice to have." After hundreds of hours, our process is complete, and the results should ensure you can find the best solution for your needs.
At Tech.co, we have a number of full-time in-house researchers, who re-run testing and research processes regularly, to ensure our results remain reflective of the present day.
Verdict: Is Rand McNally a Good Fit For You?
Rand McNally is pretty strong across the board – offering a raft of sophisticated fleet management and cost-saving features from a user-friendly interface. As long as you’re able to do without an iOS mobile app, there’s a good chance the fleet management system will be able to meet your needs, especially if your hardware needs are a little more complex.
However, with some customers reporting software glitches and no 24/7 support available, we’d recommend trialing out the software before you commit to avoid getting caught out by its stringent cancellation period. If you need to unlock ultra-targeted insights like engine or cargo temperature, we’d recommend using Verizon or Samsara instead as both fleet management systems offer these features.
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