Development of a Vehicle Tracking and Fleet Management Application for a Logistics Company in Lagos State

Logistics companies in Lagos State face substantial operational challenges arising from lack of real-time vehicle visibility, inefficient routing, and inadequate fuel consumption monitoring. This study presents the development of a GPS-based vehicle tracking and fleet management application for a road logistics company in Lagos, South West Nigeria. The system uses GPS trackers (SIM908 module) installed in vehicles, transmitting coordinates at 30-second intervals to a Node.js backend via MQTT protocol. A React-based web dashboard displays real-time vehicle positions on OpenStreetMap, with trip history, idle time alerts, and speed violation notifications. Fleet size for the pilot was 15 vehicles operating across Lagos-Ibadan and Lagos-Onitsha corridors. Development followed an Agile methodology across eight two-week sprints. System testing included GPS accuracy validation (mean positional error of 6.2 metres), messaging throughput testing at 200 simultaneous device events, and 30-day live pilot operation. During the pilot, the system identified an average of 2.3 unauthorised route deviations per week per vehicle. Fuel consumption reporting revealed a 12 percent reduction in average fuel cost per kilometre compared to the pre-system baseline, attributed to driver behaviour improvement. The company's dispatch efficiency improved by 23 percent. The study recommends integration with driver behaviour scoring and predictive maintenance modules in future versions.

Keywords: fleet management, GPS tracking, logistics, Lagos State, vehicle monitoring