What is a Vehicle Recovery System? Benefits & How Does it Work?

Know how the vehicle recovery system works and support in tracking your purposely stolen or accidentally misplaced vehicles. Review all types too for investing in next!

“Your vehicle MU 105Pxxx is moving towards 37° 45 ‘15.0′′N, 122° 25’ 08.0″W — which was not a planned route.”

A moment of panic, but also relief—panic because your fleet is outside the authorized zone, maybe even stolen. Relief, because you can track its exact location in real-time.

With reliable vehicle recovery systems, this situation isn’t as scary, especially for businesses operating with high-risk cargo vehicles.

Concerned about fleet safety? Learn these systems work to ensure the safe and assured recovery of your vehicles.

What is a Vehicle Recovery System?

A vehicle recovery system is a technological platform used to track and locate the live location of stolen or misplaced vehicles. These systems utilises GPS, RFID, or cellular network technology to fetch the real-time locational data of the vehicles. The system can be flexibly used by fleet owners or law enforcement agencies.

If these systems are advanced, they may even feature smart remote engine immobilisation features with options for enabling alerts.

This alarm rings when:

—> An unauthorised movement is detected.

—> GPS tracking devices are tampered with.

—> Or any unfortunate theft or any event of vandalising is detected.

All in all, these asset tracking systems are a great aid in tracking and recovering stolen vehicles with less damage. And potentially less time wastage.

7 Types of Vehicle Recovery Systems (Commonly Used)

The bespoke recovery system is available to use in the following types:

1. GPS Tracking System

This system utilizes Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to provide real-time locational coordinates of the vehicle for tracking purposes. These systems work in conjunction with smart OBD GPS trackers or IoT sensors to relay the geo-coordinates of the travelling vehicle.

2. Cellular-based Vehicle Tracking System

This system leverages cellular networks to transmit the vehicle’s locational data for monitoring purposes.

3. RFID Chips or System

RFID or Radio Frequency Identification tags are embedded in vehicles that communicate with nearby receivers to locate the vehicle exactly.

4. Satellite-Based Vehicle Recovery System

These systems work similarly to GPS systems. Such systems utilises satellite communication to track and locate the stolen vehicles. The best part of these systems is they can track vehicles even in remote or difficult-to-reach areas.

5. Telematics-Based Systems

Telematics vehicle tracking systems like TrackoBit do more than locate vehicles—they also provide data on their performance and status.

6. Immobilizer Systems

Vehicle engine immobilisers are specialised systems that can help remotely disable the vehicle’s engine to prevent it from getting driven away or stolen.

7. Hybrid Recovery System

In the market, you will find a hybrid recovery system that works on multiple technologies, such as GPS, cellular, and RFID. This powerful combination helps in accurate tracking and ensures fast recovery of the vehicle.

How Does a Vehicle Recovery System Work? The Mechanics!

Here’s how the vehicle tracking system works so you can effectively track data on your stolen vehicles.

1. Installation of GPS Tracker

The first step is to install GPS trackers or hardware on an individual vehicle or the entire fleet you want to track. Don’t worry these devices are easy to hide and tamper-proof by thieves.

Once installed, these devices will start tracking locational data and display it to you over a central vehicle telematics software.

2. Live Location Tracking

The GPS device you just installed will now communicate with the satellites and help determine the live location of your stolen or misplaced trucks.

You will receive complete locational coordinates, address with time stamps, mileage, speed, and distance of the vehicle over a centrally placed vehicle tracking system.

“You will be getting all the live and self-updating locational data.”

3. Enabling Geofencing Alerts

When you choose the most advanced vehicle recovery systems, you can draw geofences with names too. This feature allows you to set virtual boundaries with names around areas where you want your fleet to be operational. Whenever your drivers are found driving out of these geofences, you will get instant alerts.

“Very helpful feature, if someone tries to drive on unplanned routes and geofences, you will be getting the alerts.”

4. 50+ Alerts and Notifications

When the vehicle moves or operates without authorization, the recovery system will send instant alerts to you either via notifications or SMS.

TrackoBit offers you the option to enable almost 50+ alerts and notifications for diverse situations. Be it geofence entry-exit, route deviation, or drivers following non-compliant driving behaviour. Everything is notified to you!

5. Enabling Remote Engine Immobilization

They say prevention is better than cure.

If you happen to invest in an advanced vehicle recovery system with a remote engine immobilisation feature, consider yourself lucky. Even if your vehicle catches the attention of unwanted thieves, you can simply immobilise the vehicle’s engine and prevent it from getting driven away.

6. Auto Data Recording for Analysis

These vehicle recovery or tracking systems are very efficient in tracking your vehicle’s location and performance history from the previous months. You can anytime revisit this past month’s data, playback it and get traces of how and where exactly the vehicle was stolen.

If you had outfitted your vehicles with AI dashcams, you could even get raw footage of the incident. You can easily identify the face behind the theft.

7. Quick Assistance in Vehicle Recovery

If you happen to have a vehicle tracking system, you can share the location data along with:

• Travelled routes with an up-to-the-minute update
• Overall on-road activities with complete time stamps. You will know when and for how long it was idling, in transit, or stopped at the delivery points.

In short, you can assess your vehicle’s entire activities or movements and get active location data around it.

Benefits of Vehicle Recovery Systems – Are They Worth It?

Yes, having these systems can totally provide you with visible benefits as follows:

• Quick Recovery – You can in no time locate your vehicle’s location and take action to recover it along with law and enforcement authorities.
• Theft Deterrent  – The presence of such a system helps ring loud alarms that demotivate unwanted burglars from sneaking inside the vehicle.
• Peace of Mind – Imagine the peace of mind you will get if you know that your vehicles can be tracked if god forbid, they are stolen.

All in all, this system is crucial for your vehicle’s surveillance and security. This is especially important when you are operational in high-risk areas or dealing with the delivery of costly consignments.

Switch to the Right Vehicle Recovery System for Your Business!

The rising cases of consignments getting robbed or vehicles getting stolen can leave you and your operational team feeling fearful.

Are you worried about vehicle theft and the potential loss of your valuable assets? If so,  don’t wait any longer! It’s high time that you upgrade and start thinking of implementing vehicle recovery systems today.

Thinking about where to find one?

Get TrackoBit onboard and see how it will empower you with features like live tracking prompt alerts, and remote engine immobilization to ensure your assets are always trackable.

You deserve that peace of mind. Make the switch now and safeguard your assets and investments both.

FAQs on Vehicle Recovery System

• What are vehicle recovery systems used for?

  Vehicle recovery system aka vehicle tracking system, is a comprehensive telematics data-based system that helps locate, position, and recover misplaced or stolen vehicles. The system leverages GPS or RFID technology to fetch real-time locational data for asset recovery.

• Who can use vehicle recovery systems?

  The smart vehicle tracking or recovery systems can be used by fleet managers, individual car owners, businesses, and organizations looking to protect their assets.

• How much does the vehicle recovering device cost?

  The basic vehicle recovery device costs range from $100 to $500, depending, depending on the level of features and technology it offers.