A lo jack was a device that was the forerunner to gps in cars. Although a lo jack only broadcast a signal for a few miles, gps changed all of that. With a lo jack, the signal could only be picked up with a special hand held device that was within several miles of the care.

Since gps broadcast its signal all the way into low orbit satellites, the information can easily obtained by anyone who needs the information. If your car is stolen, gps can be used to track it anywhere in the world. It can effectively tell the authorities where it is located. In effect, it tells on itself and says it is stolen and someone needs to pick it up.

Once this technology started being used in cars, it was not long until it was used for truck tracking. When semi trucks were dispatched from headquarters, they did not know the location of the truck until the driver called back into dispatch. This often caused shipping delays because if a truck was late for one delivery, they were definitely going to be late for the next pick-up.

One way to eliminate the shipping delays and to utilize the entire fleet to its fullest, gps fleet tracking was implemented. This allows dispatch to know the location and speed of all their trucks at all times. If one truck was falling behind schedule and would be unable to pick up the next load on time, a new truck could be re-routed so the load was picked up on time.