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Geofence

Geofencing for precise, policy-based fleet control

AutoPi Geofencing lets you model depots, jobsites, customer locations, and corridors as precise polygon or radius zones on a live map. Vehicles stream GPS position and status into AutoPi Cloud, where entry, exit, and dwell events are computed in real time from the underlying telemetry. Zones can be attached to specific vehicles, asset groups, or tenants, so the same geography can serve different operational purposes across your fleet.

The platform calculates distance in zone, time in zone, and route deviation metrics from raw tracks, turning GPS samples into structured events you can query and report on. Use these outputs to enforce operating areas, protect high-value assets, and distinguish planned movement from exceptions. Geofence logic can drive alerts, workflows, or even immobilization rules when combined with other AutoPi features such as keyless access and maintenance alerts.

All zone events are stored with vehicle ID, zone ID, timestamp, and position, and can be exposed via REST, MQTT, or webhooks to your existing systems. This enables accurate billing based on time-on-site, SLA reporting for arrival and departure times, and analytics on utilization per customer or location. Multi-tenant isolation and configurable retention policies keep large, mixed fleets manageable without losing detail where it matters.

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Feature Highlights

Driving Your Fleet to
New Heights

In AutoPi, geofences are not just drawings on a map. Zones are first-class objects with real-time entry/exit events, dwell analytics, and alert rules that connect directly to your operational workflows. Combine them with GPS, keyless access, and maintenance data to enforce operating areas, reduce misuse, and coordinate mixed fleets across sites and regions.

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Alerts That Keep You Ahead

Configure per-zone rules for entry, exit, and dwell violations. Events can trigger alerts, webhooks, or downstream automation so deviations are detected early and handled consistently across shifts, sites, and tenants.

Define polygons or radius-based zones directly on the map and link them to vehicles, drivers, or asset groups. AutoPi continuously evaluates GPS data and emits entry, exit, and dwell events with timestamps and identifiers. Whether you manage a single truck or a distributed machine fleet, you get a precise, queryable history of where each unit has been and for how long.

Use geofence events as triggers for operational logic: notify a loading dock on arrival, start or stop job timers, raise exceptions on early departures, or create tasks for field technicians. Events can flow into Alerts & Notifications, webhooks, or external systems so your routing, dispatch, and billing processes react automatically to what happens in the field.

Model different zone types such as depots, customer sites, restricted areas, or country borders and apply distinct rules to each. Assign zones per tenant, vehicle group, or individual asset, and combine them with keyless access and immobilization policies. The result is a ruleset that matches how your operation actually works, not a one-size-fits-all template.

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Know Every Move

Correlate GPS traces with zone entry/exit events to understand where each unit operates, how long it dwells, and when it deviates from planned routes.

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Draw and Define.

Create polygon or radius zones, tag them by type, and attach policies and alerts that match your real operational constraints.

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Location-based Automation

Drive alerts, workflows, and integrations directly from zone events without manual checks or spreadsheets.

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Activity, Distance, Time Logged

Capture zone-based activity for each vehicle to support billing, payroll, compliance, and utilization analysis.

Feature Details

Geofencing for Fleet Operations

Geofencing in AutoPi links map zones with GNSS telemetry, event rules, and reporting. Compute zone entry, exit, and dwell, enforce policies at the edge or in the cloud, and expose location-based metrics for safety, utilisation, and customer commitments.

Zone-Based Alerts

Configure alerts on zone entry, exit, or dwell time and route them to operators or external systems. Use them to detect unauthorized movements, missed or late arrivals, excessive dwell at specific locations, or assets leaving restricted areas. Alerts are handled by the AutoPi Alerts & Notifications engine and can be forwarded via email, webhooks, or integrations into incident and ticketing tools.

Zone-Aware Tracking

High-resolution GNSS combined with geofences moves beyond simple “dot on a map” views. AutoPi records latitude/longitude, current zone, and dwell intervals. This enables automated route compliance checks, turnaround time calculations, and precise proof-of-service for contracts and SLAs, all derived from the same event stream.

Fuel and Idle Analysis

Combine zone events with fuel and engine signals to localise where consumption is wasted: long idle periods at specific depots, repeated detours outside planned corridors, or inefficient routing between hubs. Use this dataset to refine routes, reduce deadhead mileage, and keep vehicles operating within the most efficient patterns for your network.

A 3D illustration of how geofence can be used with alerts
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Structured Movement Analytics

Geofence analytics provide a structured view of how assets move between locations over time. Aggregate zone visits, dwell distributions, and activity per vehicle, route, or customer and feed this into planning and fleet management processes. This supports maintenance scheduling, verification of service levels, and allocation of capacity to the sites that actually generate demand.

Zone-Specific Driving Behaviour

Bind driver-behaviour metrics to specific zones such as depots, school areas, or customer sites. Use zone-aware speed, harsh events, and idle statistics to enforce local policies, reduce risk in sensitive areas, and document adherence to site-specific safety requirements.

Asset Utilisation Insights

Quantify how long vehicles, trailers, or machines spend parked versus in productive zones. Geofencing highlights underutilised assets and supports decisions on redeployment, right-sizing, or additional investment. Combined with maintenance and cost data, it helps ensure that high-value equipment is used where it yields the most operational value.

Something unclear?

Frequently asked questions

Geofencing is a way of defining a virtual boundary around a real-world area and reacting when an object crosses that boundary. Using GPS, RFID, Wi-Fi, or cellular data, the system emits entry, exit, or dwell events whenever a device or asset enters or leaves a defined zone. In fleet management, geofencing connects location to rules, helping you monitor movements, enforce operating areas, and drive automation around security, efficiency, and compliance.
Read our detailed guide on Geofencing.

Geofencing supports fleet management across industries by restricting unauthorized movement and optimizing day-to-day processes. Typical use cases include:
  • Construction: Preventing equipment theft with alerts on unexpected asset movements outside compounds or overnight zones.
  • Energy & Oil: Monitoring field crew and vehicle access to remote sites and hazardous areas.
  • Trucking: Reducing detention times with automatic arrival and departure alerts at loading docks.
  • Delivery: Notifying customers and back office when vehicles enter last-mile delivery zones.
  • Rental Services: Tracking vehicles across state lines or international borders and enforcing territorial limits.
  • Business Fleets: Ensuring vehicles stay within assigned zones (regions, countries, sites) and raising alerts on deviations.

Setting up a geofence for your fleet with AutoPi Cloud follows a simple, repeatable process:
  1. Choose AutoPi Cloud: AutoPi Cloud provides an interface designed for fleet operations with built-in geofencing capabilities. It can be used by both drivers and fleet managers across desktop and mobile devices.
  2. Create Your Geofence: Locate the relevant area on the AutoPi Cloud map and draw the virtual perimeter as a polygon or radius. Assign vehicles, drivers, or asset groups to that zone and optionally tag it by type (e.g., depot, customer, restricted).
  3. Configure Notifications and Rules: Define when and how alerts should fire. On entry, exit, or dwell time. AutoPi Cloud supports flexible if-then conditions, such as “if a vehicle exits the geofenced area outside operating hours, notify the fleet manager immediately.” Choose delivery channels like email, webhook, or integrations with other systems.

For a step-by-step guide on creating geofences and setting up notifications in AutoPi Cloud, visit our detailed geofencing guide.

Yes. Geofencing contributes to safety by monitoring where vehicles operate and how they behave in specific areas. You can enforce lower speed expectations in high-risk zones, detect unauthorized after-hours use, and restrict access to hazardous or private areas. Combined with driver behavior metrics, this helps reduce accidents, misuse, and theft while supporting your safety policies.

GPS data can be collected even when a vehicle is temporarily offline. AutoPi devices buffer telemetry and geofence events locally and synchronize them when connectivity returns. For real-time alerts and automated actions, a connection is required so events can reach the AutoPi Cloud or your own backend, but the underlying position history is preserved across offline periods.

Accuracy depends on the positioning source and environment. GPS-based geofencing in typical outdoor conditions is usually accurate to within a few meters, which is sufficient for most fleet scenarios such as depots, job sites, and route corridors. In more complex environments, zone design (size, shape, buffer distances) and sampling frequency can be tuned to balance precision and noise while still delivering reliable entry/exit logic.

Yes. Geofence events, alerts, and telemetry can be exposed via REST APIs, webhooks, and MQTT topics so they can feed directly into your existing fleet, TMS, ERP, or BI tools. This lets you keep using your current planning and reporting stack while AutoPi supplies zone-level events and metrics as an additional data source.

AutoPi Cloud is designed to handle large fleets and many zones. You can define multiple geofences per site, region, or customer and associate them with individual vehicles, groups, or tenants. Scaling limits depend on your commercial setup, but technically the platform can track geofence events across thousands of vehicles and zones simultaneously.

Each geofence event typically includes the vehicle or asset ID, zone ID, event type (entry/exit/dwell), timestamp, and the associated GPS position. Depending on configuration, it can also be linked to driver identity, trip context, and alert status. This structure makes it easy to query history, generate reports, and correlate zone activity with utilization, maintenance, or billing data.

At minimum, you need AutoPi devices installed in your vehicles with GPS enabled and an AutoPi Cloud account. Once devices are online, you can define geofences in the cloud, assign them to vehicles or groups, and configure alerts and integrations. From there, geofence events become part of your normal telemetry stream for dashboards, reports, and automation.

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