Our connected car data catalogue grows with every new manufacturer. Explore the variety of data items available via our Auto API.

Airtable

What Is Location Data?

Most modern vehicles have onboard GPS tracking systems and communicate using mobile data networks with in-built sim cards. GPS devices accurately determine the location of a vehicle and can be passed on to management or relevant services that can use this data in multiple ways.The core data which is communicated is the latitude, longitude, and altitude of the vehicle. Plus the travelling direction. The timestamp of this vehicle location data for accurately determine when the vehicle was in a specific location.

How Does GPS work?

Using GPS, modern vehicles can be tracked wherever they are in the world. GPS or Global Positioning Systems use an array of satellites which are continuously orbiting the earth. A GPS device within a car communicates with this satellite to determine its exact location. GPS has been in the public hands since 1983 with a long list of uses in recent decades.

Use Cases

Use cases can be:

  • Emergency services -get to where they need as quickly as possible to attend to the issue.
  • Insurance companies track their vehicles - making sure a policyholder does not stray outside of their boundary or time limits.
  • Fleet management companies - can determine vehicle journey time, length and live direction of travel. This can be used to work out when a vehicle is due back to base, how often it needs repairing, plus the average distances covered to work out component degradation and service schedule.