PLAINFIELD, IL – Illinois-based landscaping company Acres Group has added a GPS tracking system to its fleet of 280 vehicles. The fleet consists of 40 cars, 75 pickups, 100 one-ton dump trucks, and 65 medium duty trucks, primarily General Motors and International vehicles. Acres Group’s current owner and CEO Jim Schwantz founded the company in 1983. The company selected NexTraq as its vendor for the system.

“We originally had a low-cost solution that didn’t provide enough functionality for our company,” said Jeff Dumas, vice president of Acres Group North. “Because we lease space for our trucks throughout our market area, it was important to track vehicle movement at a moment’s notice.”

The primary benefits from using the system have been improved driver safety, fuel savings, and asset recovery. The specific benefits Dumas said the company has seen include a 92-percent reduction in speeding incidents and recovery of assets worth $30,000.

“We have realized significant results in fuel savings due to idle time and speed reports,” said Dumas. “However, we implemented some other changes in our vehicle policy at the same time so we do not have an exact percentage of savings.”

Dumas said the system’s alert functionality allows it to send him text messages if any vehicle in the fleet moves before 5 a.m. He used this functionality to notify police that a theft had occurred, which led to the recovery of company assets.