How Mobile Phone Tracking Works

Track My Ride mobile phone tracking allows you to manage your team's location using smartphones. You can capture tracks continuously, around the clock, or on a customised schedule like during business hours. Mobile tracking is particularly useful for businesses with more staff than vehicles, or when tracking individual movements is key for enhanced safety and operational efficiency. You don't need a hardware tracker to use mobile tracking.

Each active hardware tracker includes one free mobile tracking licence. For example, if you have 10 hardware trackers, you can track up to 10 mobile phones at no extra cost. To track 12 mobile phones, you would only need to purchase 2 additional licences.

Mobile Tracking Licences

You can manage your mobile tracking licences from within your account and billing page. Licences are used when you enable mobile tracking in the driver record editor, or use the mobile tracking link page to setup mobile tracking on your own phone.

Legal Requirements

It's against Track My Ride terms and conditions to track anyone who isn't aware they're being tracked. It's also against the law in almost all jurisdictions including Australia. Use GPS tracking responsibly.

Tracking Someone Else

Mobile tracking data is saved against a driver, so first you need to create a driver record if you haven't done so already for the person you wish to track.

Step 1: Navigate to Drivers Page

Navigate to the drivers page and choose the Drivers tab if not already selected.

Step 2: Create or Edit Driver Record

Create a driver record if you haven't done so already, or edit an existing driver by clicking the pencil next to their row.

Step 3: Open Mobile Tracking Settings

Click the Mobile Tracking tab at the top of the driver editing window to access the mobile tracking settings.

Step 4: Enable Mobile Tracking

Enable mobile tracking by clicking the toggle switch. You will need 1 available mobile tracking licence.

Step 5: Configure Settings

Configure the settings for this mobile tracked driver, such as tracking mode, path colour and local timezone.

Step 6: Save Changes

Press Save to save your changes. The tracking linking QR code will be displayed. You can also send it in an email with instructions included.

Step 7: Install the App

Install the Track My Ride mobile app on the driver's smartphone. Apple App Store and Google Play Store links are available.

Step 8: Link the Phone

At the login page choose "Got a tracking link key." Scan the QR code or enter the link key manually to link the phone to this driver. Follow the prompts on the phone to finish setting up tracking.

Their location will now be displayed on the map. A mobile tracked driver without a linked Track My Ride account will only be able to access the simplified mobile tracking interface in the Track My Ride mobile app. They cannot view the location of other team members.

Tracking Your Own Phone

If you're already using Track My Ride and want to add mobile tracking on the same phone, there are two ways to setup mobile tracking for your own phone: through the Track My Ride mobile app, or via the Track My Ride website app at https://app.trackmyride.com.au.

Setup Via the Mobile App

Open the Track My Ride mobile app and login to your account. Look for the mobile phone icon shown at the bottom of the app and click it. Follow the instructions for setting up mobile tracking.

Setup Via the Website

To setup mobile tracking for your own phone, you will need to associate your Track My Ride account with your driver record.

Navigate to the Drivers page and choose the Drivers tab if not already selected.

Create a new driver record for yourself, or edit your existing record by clicking the pencil next to the row.

Click the Mobile tracking tab at the top of the driver editing window to access the mobile tracking settings.

Enable mobile tracking by clicking the toggle switch. You will need 1 available mobile tracking licence.

In the Account Link field, choose your account from the list.

Configure the settings for your mobile tracking, such as tracking mode, path colour and local timezone.

Press Save to save your changes.

Install the Track My Ride mobile app on your smartphone and login to your account.

What if you switch phones? No worries. When you sign in on a new phone, your mobile tracking shifts to that phone automatically and stops on the previous one. Mobile tracking is linked to one phone per driver at a time.

Tracking Drivers and Vehicles Separately

Track My Ride offers a dual approach to managing both your vehicles and your team members.

Tracking for Drivers

When your team members use mobile tracking, their movements are recorded individually against their driver record. Every trip a driver makes, whether driving or walking, gets logged under their driver record and is visible on the map.

Tracking for Vehicles

For vehicles, Track My Ride recommends hardware trackers. These devices keep a record of all trips and movement made by a particular vehicle. Being physical hardware installed in the vehicle means it always goes where the vehicle goes and operates 24/7. Hardware is the gold standard for vehicle location tracking.

Alternatively, you can use the Track My Ride app's automatic vehicle driving detection as part of the driver's mobile tracking to record where your vehicles have been. The driver just needs to choose the vehicle they're driving in the app.

Combining Both for Comprehensive Tracking

You can track your vehicles using hardware trackers directly to track vehicles fitted with Track My Ride hardware trackers. Tracks shown will be those recorded by the hardware tracker.

You can also create virtual vehicles for vehicles without hardware trackers and assign them to your mobile tracked drivers. Track My Ride uses a special algorithm to detect the phone's activity to determine if it is driving or walking. When a driver logs into a virtual vehicle, all their driving tracks get recorded under that vehicle's record. This is especially useful if your team uses different vehicles not equipped with Track My Ride hardware trackers but you want to keep track of those too.

This dual approach ensures you have complete visibility over your team's movements and vehicle usage, regardless of whether they are driving or on foot, and irrespective of the vehicle they are using.

Automatic Start and Stop of Tracking

Track My Ride mobile tracking operates automatically in the background. This means you don't need to remember to turn it on, just grab your phone and go. If you've been stationary for a while, to save battery your phone's operating system may require between 200 metres to 1000 metres of movement before tracking starts. Unfortunately Track My Ride cannot control this, as it's managed by your phone to reduce power usage. To save your phone's battery, Track My Ride may need up to 200 metres to 1000 metres of movement before tracking commences. To ensure a good GPS signal, use a phone mount in your car for the best results.

Minimising Power Usage and Upload Frequency

Track My Ride is designed to be exceptionally power conscious. The app uses minimal battery, targeting a usage of just about 5% per hour while tracking is active and your phone is on the move. While you're stationary, Track My Ride uses the motion sensor to automatically pause tracking, meaning 0 power usage while you're at rest.

Capturing GPS points is surprisingly light on power usage. The part that demands more energy is the transmission of these points over the mobile network to Track My Ride servers. To optimise battery life, Track My Ride smartly batches up to 200 GPS points before sending them. This means you'll typically see your location updated every 10 minutes while on the move. Also, if you stop moving for 5 to 10 minutes, the app will send any points it is currently storing to the servers.

For situations where you need updates more frequently or desire point by point real time tracking, Track My Ride offers this flexibility. You can customise how often the app uploads GPS points by adjusting the Upload Frequency setting in the driver record during the setup of mobile tracking. This feature ensures that you can balance the need for up to date tracking while maintaining your battery life.

Scheduled Tracking vs 24/7 Automatic Tracking

Enabling, disabling or changing the schedule will notify the mobile user with a push notification.

Automatic 24/7 Tracking

This option keeps the tracking on all the time, capturing every movement, day and night.

Scheduled Tracking

Prefer tracking only during certain hours? Set up a schedule that suits you. You can specify the hours when tracking should be active for each day. The tracking will automatically turn on and off according to the times you've set, and you can adjust these times in hourly increments for any day of the week.

Ping Feature for Instant Location

You cannot ping a phone if scheduled tracking is enabled and it is outside its scheduled tracking time.

If you need to find out a phone's current location quickly, use the Ping feature in Track My Ride.

Send a Ping: Click ping from the map or the driver record. This action triggers a push notification to the phone you're trying to locate, requesting its current location.

Notification Alert: The user of the phone receives this notification, making them aware that an updated location is being requested.

Quick Location Update: Upon receiving the ping, the phone will attempt to acquire its current location within 60 seconds and then send this information back to Track My Ride servers.

Track My Ride chose this transparent approach to GPS tracking because honesty and openness are valued. Covert tracking isn't Track My Ride's style. The visible notification also prompts the phone's operating system to prioritise the ping, making it more effective at quickly obtaining a new location.

Mobile phone tracking with Track My Ride provides flexible, battery efficient location monitoring for your team while maintaining transparency and respecting privacy.