what-is-telematics-2026-10-02.csv

How the ping interval of a fleet tracker changes the mileage and the stops it reports.
Ten simulated delivery and service rounds in European cities, six ping intervals each.
MapAtlas, generated 2 October 2026. Article: https://mapatlas.eu/blog/what-is-telematics

Method
- Routes: MapAtlas Directions API (costing auto, no live traffic) from a depot through
  5 to 12 stops and back. Stops are seeded random points around a centre, snapped to the
  nearest drivable road by the router. The route length is the true mileage.
- Simulated GPS: true position at 1 s resolution plus a slowly drifting error
  (Gauss-Markov, 3 m per axis, 60 s correlation time) and 1% outlier fixes with 30 m extra
  error. The tracker keeps reporting while parked. Time at each stop: 1.5 to 6 min (parcel
  rounds) or 15 to 60 min (service rounds).
- Mileage: raw = sum of straight lines between pings; filtered = the same after dropping
  pings within 15 m of the last kept ping; map matched = MapAtlas Map Matching API
  (costing auto, map_snap), with gaps the matcher could not connect routed with the
  Directions API.
- Stops: consecutive pings within 50 m for at least 60 s, runs less than 2 min and 50 m
  apart merged. A true stop is found when a detected stop lies within 100 m and overlaps
  in time.
- Script: scripts/seo/blog-keyword-research/what-is-telematics.mjs in the mapatlas.eu
  repository. Raw results: docs/blog-keyword-research/what-is-telematics-2026-10-02.json.

Columns
route_id          short id of the round (ams, ber, par, mad, mil, waw, vie, lyo, muc, utr)
area              city or region of the round
kind              parcel (12 stops) or service (5 or 6 stops)
stops             number of stops in the round
true_km           length of the routed round in km
driving_minutes   driving time of the round in minutes (router estimate, no traffic)
round_minutes     driving plus time at the stops, in minutes
ping_interval_s   seconds between two position reports
pings             number of position reports in the round
raw_km            sum of straight-line distances between consecutive pings, km
raw_error         raw_km / true_km - 1
filtered_km       as raw_km after dropping pings within 15 m of the last kept ping
filtered_error    filtered_km / true_km - 1
map_matched_km    length of the map-matched path, km
map_matched_error map_matched_km / true_km - 1
stops_found       true stops detected from the pings
stops_missed      true stops not detected
false_stops       detected stops that match no true stop

Licence
CC BY 4.0, attribute "MapAtlas (mapatlas.eu)". Routes computed on OpenStreetMap data,
(c) OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0.