201009 roadmap newsletter - september 2010

Roadmap Monthly Newsletter | [email protected] | Tel + 351 214 135 670 | Fax +351 214 135 678 Frotcom vehicle tracking system | www.frotcom.com Algeria | Angola |Belgium | Brazil | Bulgaria | Cameroon | Cyprus | D. R. Congo | Greece | Kenya | Luxemburg | Macedonia | Madagascar | Mauritius | Morocco | Portugal | Reunion Islands | Romania | Rwanda | Senegal | Seychelles | Slovenia | Spain | Tanzania | Uganda

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Roadmap monthly newsletter

Editorial

rotcom International reported that in August 2010

more Frotcom tracking devices were sold than in

any previous month. Actually, regardless of this

sales peak, overall sales have been increasing

steadily.

We are obviously happy with the good commercial performance but had to analyze

it further. We found that this increase is happening for two reasons.

1. Expansion of the network of Frotcom Certified Partners

The network keeps expanding. Once again, this edition of Roadmap presents a

new Partner: Frotcom Cyprus. Naturally, the simple fact that Frotcom arrives

to a new market produces a corresponding increase in the number of units sold

and activated.

2. Increase in average sales per Frotcom Certified Partner

A second factor contributing to the increment in sales, is that most Frotcom

Certified Partners are selling more, individually, than, say, one year ago. In

other words, Frotcom Certified Partners have been able to increment their

sales, probably due to a mix of factors such as market knowledge and

experience, Frotcom brand awareness, customer references and

competitiveness.

The competitiveness of a solution is based on many vectors. Price, for sure.

Technical quality of the solution, absolutely. But also customer support and service.

I will say this once again: if Frotcom is selling well in so

many markets, Frotcom International is certainly

responsible for some of the ingredients. But at the end of

the day, it’s thanks to the work and dedication of the

Frotcom Certified Partners that a good solution is

turned into a great service.

And the market always recognizes great service!

Valério Marques CEO - Frotcom International

A note from the editor – If you would like to have your own say in the next edition of this newsletter

please do not hesitate to get in touch at [email protected].

F

September 2010

In this issue

Frotcom Cyprus

Because vehicle tracking

makes sense on islands, too.

Case study

Macedonia starts on the

right foot

News and events

Frotcom Bulgaria sponsors

FIA Rally team…

and Frotcom Indian Ocean

exhibits

This and much more…

mailto:[email protected]


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Flag of Cyprus

New Frotcom Certified Partner

Frotcom Cyprus Because vehicle tracking makes sense on

islands, too.

It is a complete misconception that vehicle tracking is not

needed on islands, where vehicles cannot go too far. That

could probably be true in the case of vehicle tracking for

anti-theft and vehicle recovery. However, Frotcom is used

mainly for fleet management. It does not matter whether

fleets operate on an island or on a vast continent. They

still need to be managed.

Frotcom already proved its value to companies operating

exclusively on islands, such as Madagascar, Madeira

(Portugal) and Mauritius.

Now it’s time for Cyprus to join in. X.O Ecopower Ltd, a Nicosia based company, and

Frotcom International, signed a Frotcom Certified Partner Agreement which will

bring Frotcom to all companies operating in Cyprus.

According to Michalis Christodoulides, CEO of Frotcom Cyprus, “Our main focus of

business is the specialization on GPS tracking in close cooperation with Frotcom

International, a world leading company in vehicle tracking and fleet management. We

have selected Frotcom International for the Cyprus market due to their all-included

solution with high quality and low price policy.

With the continued support of Frotcom International we have high expectations for

Frotcom Cyprus and we strongly believe that companies in all market sectors in our

country can benefit a lot from our solutions.”

ROADMAP welcomes Michalis Christodoulides and the Frotcom Cyprus team

and wishes them great success.

A few words about Cyprus

The Republic of Cyprus is the third largest island in the

Mediterranean Sea and one of its most popular tourist

destinations. An advanced, high-income economy with a

very high Human Development Index, it was a founding

member of the Non-Aligned Movement until it joined

the European Union on 1 May 2004.

> Capital: Nicosia > Language: Greek and Turkish

> Territory: 9,248 sq km > Population: 798 thousand

> Currency: Euro (EUR) > GDP: 23 billion USD (2009)

Did you know

Browsers and operating

systems

Google Analytics is an excellent tool to

help better profiling Frotcom use.

For instance, we can know exactly

which are the most popular web

browsers used by visitors to

www.frotcom.com:

Browser Percentage

Internet Explorer 54.6% Firefox 29.1% Chrome 9.6% Safari 3.3% Opera 2.8% Others 0.6%

Data source:

Google Analytics, Jul 1st 2010 to Sep 6th 2010

What about the operating systems?

The answer is below.

OS Percentage

Windows 95.0% Macintosh 2.4% SymbianOS 1.0% Linux 0.8% iPhone 0.4% Others 0.4%

Data source:


Windows is clearly predominant.

Let’s see which Windows editions are

more popular.

Windows edition Percentage

XP 60.2% 7 22.4% Vista 15.9% Server 2003 0.9% 2000 0.5% Others 0.1%

Data source:


XP is still ahead, although edition 7 is

now in second place, before Vista.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Cyprus.svg


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Case Study

Macedonia starts on the right foot

Frotcom Macedonia’s very first

client, PAVI Trans, is part of a

large group with national and

international transportation

activities. The company provides

both nationwide and global

distribution, around the clock, 365

days a year.

According to Mr. Zoran Jovev, the CEO of Pavi Trans: “We were facing quite a few

challenging problems in the management and control of our fleet, not being able to

achieve the level of efficiency and the optimal utilization of resources which are key to

our business.

So we decided to go for the Frotcom Vehicle Tracking System as a way of readressing

the unsatisfactory situation with our previous fleet management system; reduce costs,

improve productivity, enchance customer service and increase safety. That, of course,

resulted in better business planning.

Our experience with Frotcom has been very fruitfull and I can say, without hesitation,

that we’ve met our goals. I can also say without hesitation that Frotcom is indeed -

the best tool for GPS fleet tracking!”

ROADMAP congratulates Dragan Kostovski, Aleksandra Getov and the Frotcom

Macedonia team for this first case study. Many others will follow, for sure.

News and events

Frotcom helps the Citymotion project

What has the image to the right got to do with Frotcom?

The full answer can be obtained at http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/2010/05/16/the-

new-cartographers-1-pedro-m-cruz/.

The short answer is: it is a representation of the traffic in Lisbon, at a certain time of

the day. Project Citymotion, developed in the framework of MIT Portugal, is

determining the traffic in Lisbon from a data fusion process which takes into account

anonymous data from GPS tracking, bus and train locations, cell phone traces, etc.

Frotcom International is contributing to this project by generating samples of

anonymous tracking data which are then processed by traffic visualization

algorithms.

Tip of the month

Note: this tip is only valid for vehicles

equipped with a CANBus device.

Frotcom’s CANBus module can read

data such as fuel level in the tank,

engine speed, engine temperature and

tachograph information.

In the specific case of fuel, two graphs

are available: Fuel level (%) and Fuel

level variation (%).

The fuel level (%) graph shows the

level of fuel as a percentage of the total

capacity of the tank. The fuel level

variation (%) shows very clearly when

there are sharp fuel level variations,

either positive (refueling operation) or

negative (sudden fuel level drop in the

tank).

If you take the next graph, for instance,

you will see that a refueling operation

took place (positive peak). By right

clicking on the peak, you can now

choose the Show this moment on map

operation.

Once you choose that option, you will

be able to see the exact place in the

map where that operation occurred:

With this option, you can easily check

whether or not this is a valid place for

loading/unloading fuel.

Mapping sudden

fuel variations

Tip of the month

CANBus data

Some trucks and other special

vehicles are prepared to export data

such as accumulated distance

travelled, engine hours, distance to

next engine service, fuel consumption,

fuel level, engine speed, engine

temperature and tachograph status,

through a CANBus interface. With a

simple connection, the fleet manager

can have access to all those variables.

Frotcom can read CANBus data

from several trucks.

Some of these brands require an

electronic interface (CAN-1), while

others simply need a variant of the

Fox LT, the Fox LT-CH, a much

cheaper solution.

The following table shows some of the

current brands and models

compatible to Frotcom’s CANBus

module. For other models, please

contact your Frotcom Certified

Partner.

Brand Model

DAF CF/LF/XF 2001 b)

CF/LF/XF105 2006+ a)

IVECO Stralis 2002 b)

Stralis 2006+ b)

MAN

TGL/TGM/TGA/TGS 2005 a)

TGL/TGM/TGA/TGX 2007+

a)

Mercedes Actros MP2 2003+ a)

Renault Premium Avantage 2006+ b)

Magnum 2003 c)

Scania 4 Series 1999-2004 b)

R-P Series 2005+ a)

Volvo

FM/FL/FH 2001-2005

b)

FE/FM/FL/FH16 2006+ b)

a) All referred CANBus data accessible to both Fox LT-CH and CAN-1.

b) Only CAN-1 provides access to all CANBus data. Fox LT-CH does not provide access to all CANBus data.

c) Both CAN-1 and Fox LT-CH do not provide access to all CANBus data.

http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/2010/05/16/the-new-cartographers-1-pedro-m-cruz/

http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/2010/05/16/the-new-cartographers-1-pedro-m-cruz/


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Frotcom Bulgaria sponsors FIA Rally car

Frotcom Bulgaria sponsored one of the

participating teams of the 30th Rally Sliven, a race

included in the FIA European Rally Cups.

(http://www.rallysliven.com)

The N2 Group Peugeot 106 was driven

by Shtilian Tenchev (Pilot) and Yordan

Yordanov (Co-Pilot) as part of team

BULSIM RS.

After the 16 stages which took place on

September 4 and 5, the Frotcom

sponsored team reached the 8th place in

the overall classification, and 2nd place

in the N2 Group.

ROADMAP congratulates BULSIM RS and Frotcom Bulgaria for this excellent

result.

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Frotcom Indian Ocean exhibits

Frotcom was one of the highlights of the

2010 edition of Infotech, Mauritius’s

major annual Information and

Communication Technology (ICT) event.

According to Fawzy Delior, CEO of

Frotcom Indian Ocean, “Infotech 2010

has been a real success for us. Frotcom was

clearly the most complete GPS tracking and

Fleet Management Solution in the

exhibition. So much so that we have been

chosen to participate in an emission – How

technology changes the life of people – on

MBC, our national television. Besides, the

response from visitors has been very good.”

ROADMAP congratulates Fawzy and the Frotcom Indian Ocean team for this

initiative.

Next, on Roadmap

News and events,

more new Frotcom features

and tips will be presented.

This and more, so don’t miss

the next issue of Roadmap.

201009 roadmap newsletter - september 2010

Automotive