every once in a while I get asked by partners why we recommend to use PTV's Drive&Arrive service instead of "building the ETA by themselves using standard xServer APIs". Here are some nice arguments pro Drive&Arrive - feedback is welcome. Of course our own service is also based on xServer techology and there's always the choice between make or buy. PTV has aggregated various typical requirements within Drive&Arrive and each one of these aspects can require large amounts of efforts:
- Drive&Arrive performs the road matching in case coordinates have been mismatched due to drifting and so on.
- We properly combine the break- and rest rules with time dependent data such as speed patterns or traffic incidents. This wasn't possible with xServer1's "calculateAdvancedTour" (follow this thread)
- Automatic detection of driver's break- and rest times based on a patented algorithm
- We can manage states such as Arrived, Departed, Approaching manually, half automatic or automatic
- Stop prediction (if a stop is supposed to be approached but it is not known)
- Free to use driver app provides drivers current positions and is integrated into the whole landscape
- We can use vehicle positions from many telematic providers via telematics interface
- With DA Analytics we provide an interactive tool, to monitor all incoming calls, see tours on the map, seen analysis charts
- With ArrivalBoard you can see incoming trucks on a defined location, even from unregistered drivers
- Drive&Arrives provides UI-ETA-components for your website to show currents ETAs of a trip
- You can always change trips even during your tour, and even if driver uses driver app currently to be fully flexible
- Automatic recalculation of tours triggered by intelligent mechanisms
- Asynchronous handling of computation and aggregation of tasks
- Scalable backend servier infrastructure
- Simplified API (less complex than the regular xServer APIs which you would need to integrate)
Bernd
