Urgent Courier's operate in a highly competitive market where having an edge is the advantage. To Urgent Couriers the edge is all about ensuring costs are kept to a minimum whilst ensuring the highest quality of service to their customers. GBS worked with Urgent Couriers to deliver a dispatch mapping system that gives them that edge.
Urgent Couriers Limited (UCL) is one of the largest specialised on-demand courier services in New Zealand.
Their Requirements
UCL wanted a spatial website to enable their despatch operators to view and query the locations of couriers, pick-up and drop-off locations on a detailed map. UCL wanted a website up and running quickly with minimal startup costs. UCL had existing despatch software which stores the location of known clients as a physical address.
How GBS Helped
GBS decided to develop a solution using Free Open Source products (MapServer, PostGreSQL and Apache). These were used to display the base map, store spatial information, and serve the website respectively. Dynamic spatial information (job locations and Courier locations) are then displayed on the map in real-time.
GBS took the addresses from UCL and geocoded them for display on a web map. The GPS coordinates (from mobile devices) for couriers are retrieved at a specified interval into a SQL Server database and these are displayed on the map. This allows the dispatchers to see current jobs and active couriers on a detailed map of Auckland.
In addition to basic map navigational tools (zoom, pan etc), extra tools were provided to enable despatch operators to locate despatch regions, suburbs, couriers and addresses quickly. These were provided on the web interface along with layer controls to rapidly toggle the visibility of couriers and current job locations.
To manage client location changes and the addition of new clients, a module was provided that allows the operators to easily find and update or add the locations for clients and common places. GBS also developed a tracking system whereby authorised staff members can track/replay the routes of specified couriers within specified time windows from a history of GPS locations for each courier.
"I have found GBS the most professional software provider I have dealt with. The planning and implementation was extremely structured meaning the project was delivered on time and on budget. GBS communicated progress at various stages of the project meaning we were aware of any issues that arose during development. All in all GBS are fantastic to deal with."
Steve Bonnici – Managing Director – UCL
