Teletrac

Teletrac

Formerly called	Trafficmaster
Industry	Global Positioning System
Headquarters	Garden Grove, California, U.S.
Area served	Global
Parent	Danaher Corporation
Website	www.teletrac.com

Teletrac (formerly Trafficmaster) is a software as a service company headquartered in Southern California with offices in the United Kingdom. It provides cloud-based GPS fleet tracking software and is a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation. Its software has been used to track more than 250,000 vehicles in more than 87 countries.^[1][2][3] The company has experienced rapid growth and expected to have 500,000 connections and 40,000 customers by December 2015.^[4]

History

Teletrac was originally founded as International Teletrac Systems in 1988. It received initial funding from a unit of AirTouch Communication (formerly known as Pacific Telesis)^[5] in exchange for 49% equity of the company. Teletrac launched two service offerings in 1990 for its flagship Los Angeles market: a consumer service called "Stolen Vehicle Location Services" and a fleet/enterprise service called "Corporate Vehicle Location services". Los Angeles was followed by Detroit, Miami, Dallas, Chicago, and Houston. In 1991, following the lifting or information services restrictions from the AT&T consent decree, AirTouch increased its equity stake and the company became known as AirTouch Teletrac. In 2001, Trafficmaster PLC, a large vehicle location company based in the UK, purchased the assets of Teletrac.^[6] Trafficmaster PLC was purchased by Vector Capital in 2010 in a deal valued at $145 million. The company was publicly traded prior to the purchase, but was taken private as part of the purchase by Vector.^[7] Prior to the purchase, Trafficmaster was traded on the London Stock Exchange, with the bulk of its income coming from its operations in the United States.^[8]

In 2013, Vector Capital sold Teletrac to American conglomerate Danaher Corporation.^[9] It was reported that Vector made three-times return with the sale.^[10] The same year, Teletrac received an award for Best Telematics System at the Techie Awards.^[11] In 2014 the company added a Stevie Award for Most Innovative Company of the Year.^[12]

Products

The company's initial product was stolen vehicle location and corporate fleet vehicle location. It gathered vehicle location data using a technique called multilateration. Specialized base stations and receivers were installed throughout a city and vehicles equipped with special transmitters could have their location determined on command. Once GPS Receivers became affordable, Teletrac discontinued its network-based positioning system and began marketing products and services centered around a cloud-based GPS tracking platform. It has been used for numerous purposes over the years including tracking stolen vehicles and monitoring fuel consumption. The software platform has built-in capabilities that track for compliance with EOBR and FMCSA. The software can be used for basic GPS vehicle tracking as well as compliance with electronic drivers logs. Its capabilities allow for the tracking of a few vehicles or a fleet of vehicles for larger companies.^[13][14] It released a mobile responsive version of its software in 2014.

References