Teletrac Navman Review – 2020

Given the size of Teletrac Navman’s client base — 40,000 companies across the globe — it makes sense that the company meets a wide variety of needs.

Teletrac Navman’s Director has a broad range of features, which is virtually all-encompassing, but is also customizable, allowing fleet managers to cherry-pick which features they find necessary. As a result, any fleet should find a version of Director that works for their specific needs, no matter how small or large.

Director serves a range of industries including trucking, service, government, paving, concrete and construction, in addition to mixed fleets that may need to manage a variety of vehicles under the same platform. It's particularly great for larger operations that can allocate resources towards digging into the extensive data that Director compiles into its customizable reports.

Once logged in to Director, managers will see a satellite view of their fleet on the right, with a itemized list of vehicles (or other tracked assets) on the left. From this dashboard, managers can view detailed, up-to-date reports of each vehicle’s movement and driver’s hours of service. They can also send out alerts to each driver, letting them know of traffic changes, updates to their schedules, and, thanks to Director's impressive weather telematics, adverse weather warnings.

As with most FMSs, hardware devices inside each vehicle record the data that is sent to the centralized manager dashboard. Since the data is sent by GPS signal within minutes, managers can easily track each vehicle’s performance, and quickly aid drivers who aren’t on track, saving valuable time without constantly staying on a finicky CB radio. 

You can quickly compare Teletrac Navman's FMS solution against other industry leaders with our quotes form, which takes your specific needs and delivers custom quotes from top FMS vendors.

In this guide:

• Teletrac Navman GPS Fleet Tracking: Core Features
• Teletrac Navman In-Cab Drive Tablet
• Teletrac Navman Set Up and Customer Support
• Teletrac Navman Director: Plans and Pricing
• The Verdict

Teletrac Navman GPS Fleet Tracking: Core Features

 Real-Time GPS Fleet Tracking: Naturally, you should expect excellent fleet tracking from a system designed specifically for this purpose. Teletrac Navman Director doesn’t disappoint: Managers can view their fleet via a bird’s-eye satellite view, a clickable list of vehicles, and a GPS map, and they can even get a street-level view thanks to an instant video replay dash camera feature (provided the vehicle in question has one installed).

Two-Way Communication: The ability to wirelessly dispatch drivers is essential for an FMS. Director allows drivers to message dispatchers and vice versa, even offering canned responses to further streamline communication.

Certain non-verbal check-ins — the locations a driver is travelling to, proof of delivery, and HOS compliance, for example — can be sent and received with the touch of a button or even automatically.

Dynamic Dashboard: Fleet managers can create a personalized version of their dashboard to collect all their key KPIs into a single screen. This gives managers an at-a-glance view of their fleet’s real-time status.

Vehicle Diagnostics: The Director dashboard also displays data about the condition of a fleet’s vehicles: How much fuel has been used, when vehicles are idling, how proficiently drivers are meeting their drive goals, and whether any vehicles are in use without proper authorization.

Meta-analysis shows that Director users see 12 percent fewer maintenance events and use 30 percent less fuel thanks to these diagnostic warnings.

Driving Safety Alerts: Harsh or unsafe driving can take years off a vehicle and even lead to collisions. Director allows fleet managers to set alerts that instantly address poor driving, including idling, harsh turning or acceleration, speeding, and compliance violation. The alerts can be emailed to the right person automatically, and come with adjustable priority levels.

By tracking and reducing poor driving habits, a fleet manager can cut costs on insurance or unexpected repairs.

ELD Compliance: Director offers ELD-compliant data capturing abilities. As of December 2017, all commercial motor vehicle drivers in the U.S. must electronically track their hours of service and have their Record of Duty Status on hand to present when stopped for a roadside inspection. Through the Drive tablet application, drivers will be able to easily access the e-logs tracking their hours of service.

Support & Training

Teletrac Navman Director: Plans and Pricing

Fleet management software pricing and plans can vary considerably depending on your needs and fleet size.

Generally though, most Teletrac Navman customers take out a multi-year contract that licenses the Director software, the hardware devices in each vehicle, and the in-cab Drive tablets and software.  Teletrac's prices are around the industry average of $35 per month, offering a reasonable deal but one that operators may be able to beat from other vendors.

Different plans come at different price points, and the cheapest ones can be quite limited, offering fewer customization options, and a lengthy five-minute refresh time. Also, users will need to give a 30-day notice in order to prevent an annual autorenewal on their contract.

	Teletrac Navman	Samsara	Verizon Connect Reveal
Lowest price, on average:	$35	$27	$50
Pros	Great weather prediction ability Highly customizable report data Instant video replay, if dash cams are integrated	Fast, near-real-time updates Best driver messaging features Great routing and dispatch features	Granular functionality for alerts Personalizable dashboards Great monitoring features
Cons	Features are very limited under cheaper plans Limited fuel card integrations No free trial, just a free demo	Contracts are 3-7 years long Alert set up may require some coding skill No option for hardwired units	Long contract periods Expensive Must install system yourself
Best for	Large companies that can leverage its granular data	Core fleet management abilities like fuel use, driver messaging	The construction industry

Want to see how Teletrac stacks up to its competitors? Try our quick comparison form for a variety of quotes from the top FMS providers.

The Verdict

The Teletrac Navman Director FMS is a Tech.Co recommended product: It is a simple and customizable system that offers all the features a typical fleet manager should need. The company’s commitment to customer support and its fair price tag are the icing on the cake.