The Interoperable Map

Your organization probably has four to six separate systems that show vehicles on a map. The plow spreader vendor sold you one. The fleet leasing company bundled another. Your radios have GPS built in. Somebody's department bought an app. Each produces a map, none of them produces the map, and the cost shows up as staff time nobody tracks.

The fix is not another tracking system. It is a layer that sits underneath all of them — one that takes location data from any device on any network, translates it into a single format your organization controls, adds meaning to it (which street, which route, which district, was the plow down), and then feeds your map, your dispatch system, your work order system and your public status page. This Local Government Edition explains that layer in plain language, what it costs, where the savings actually are, and the three unglamorous things that decide whether the project succeeds.