IoT Fleet Management Platform for Logistics Company in Bangalore
Project Overview
EmbedCrest, an industrial IoT solutions provider and IoT software engineering services company based in India, delivered an end-to-end fleet management platform for SwiftRoute Logistics, connecting 2,400 delivery vehicles across six Indian cities including Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, and Thane. As one of the leading iot software companies in India, our embedded developers designed custom vehicle telemetry hardware on the ESP32-S3 platform with LTE-M connectivity, GPS, OBD-II CAN bus diagnostics, IMU-based driver behavior analysis, and dual temperature sensors for cold chain compliance. Our MCU firmware development team built the device firmware on ESP-IDF with power optimized firmware development techniques achieving under 15mA sleep current while maintaining GPS warm-start capability. The custom software development included a cloud backend on AWS IoT Core with real time geofencing, predictive ETA calculation, and automated compliance reporting. Our software development services team built both a React Native driver app and a React web dashboard for fleet managers, providing comprehensive visibility into vehicle health, driver safety, route efficiency, and cold chain integrity. Delivered from our Bangalore engineering office, this embedded solutions project drove fleet utilization from 64 to 82 percent, reduced fuel costs by 23 percent, and achieved 99.8 percent cold chain compliance for pharmaceutical deliveries.
Problem Statement
SwiftRoute Logistics, a rapidly growing last-mile delivery company headquartered in Bangalore, managed a fleet of 2,400 delivery vehicles across six Indian cities including Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, and Thane. Their existing fleet management relied on consumer-grade GPS trackers with 30-second update intervals, providing no real time vehicle diagnostics, driver behavior monitoring, or cold chain compliance tracking for their temperature-sensitive pharmaceutical deliveries. Fleet utilization sat at 64 percent, fuel costs were climbing by 8 percent year over year, and regulatory compliance for pharma cold chain documentation was entirely manual.
Engineering Approach
EmbedCrest developed a comprehensive IoT fleet management platform with custom embedded hardware and cloud software. Our embedded hardware engineering team designed a compact vehicle telemetry unit based on the ESP32-S3 paired with a Quectel BG96 LTE-M modem, integrating GPS, a 6-axis IMU for driver behavior analysis, OBD-II CAN bus interface for vehicle diagnostics, and dual temperature sensors for cold chain monitoring. The MCU firmware development ran on ESP-IDF with a custom RTOS task architecture handling GPS acquisition, CAN bus polling, IMU sampling, temperature logging, and LTE-M communication in priority-ordered time slices. Power optimized firmware development ensured the unit drew under 15mA in parked sleep mode while maintaining GPS warm-start capability for sub-3 second fix times when ignition was detected. The cloud platform, built as part of our custom software development and IoT software engineering services, ran on AWS with an event-driven architecture using IoT Core, Lambda, DynamoDB, and S3. Real time geofencing, route deviation detection, and ETA prediction used a lightweight machine learning model running on AWS SageMaker. A React Native mobile app gave drivers real time navigation with dynamic route optimization, while a web dashboard provided fleet managers with comprehensive analytics including vehicle health scores, driver safety ratings, fuel efficiency trends, and automated cold chain compliance reports for pharma clients.
Measurable Outcomes
64% to 82%
Fleet utilization improvement
23%
Fuel cost reduction
99.8%
Cold chain compliance
18%
Average delivery time reduction
Technologies Used
“EmbedCrest built us a fleet platform that transformed our operations. The real time vehicle diagnostics reduced our breakdown rate dramatically, the cold chain monitoring saved our biggest pharma contract, and the route optimization cut our fuel bill by almost a quarter. Their Bangalore team understood Indian road and logistics conditions like no other vendor we evaluated.”
Deepak Narayanan
CTO, SwiftRoute Logistics
Note: Client details have been anonymized to protect confidentiality. Project outcomes and technical specifications are representative of actual engagements.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the telemetry unit handle areas with poor cellular coverage?
The device firmware implements a store-and-forward architecture with 8 MB of SPI flash configured as a circular buffer, storing up to 72 hours of telemetry data when LTE-M coverage is unavailable. The BG96 modem supports both LTE-M and NB-IoT with automatic fallback, maximizing coverage across urban and rural routes. GPS positions are logged continuously regardless of cellular status, ensuring complete trip records. When connectivity is restored, queued data is uploaded in compressed batches using MQTT QoS 1 to guarantee delivery.
How is driver behavior scoring calculated?
The onboard 6-axis IMU samples acceleration and gyroscope data at 100 Hz. The firmware runs real time event detection algorithms identifying hard braking events exceeding 0.45g, aggressive acceleration above 0.35g, sharp cornering above 0.3g lateral, and speeding based on GPS velocity correlated with road speed limits from the OpenStreetMap database. Each event is weighted and aggregated into a daily driver safety score. The cloud platform uses a rolling 30-day weighted average for trend analysis and identifies drivers who would benefit from targeted training.
What cold chain compliance features are included?
Dual NTC thermistor probes monitor cargo compartment temperature at 10-second intervals. The firmware generates tamper-evident temperature logs with cryptographic checksums stored in flash and uploaded to the cloud. If temperature excursions exceed configurable thresholds, alerts are pushed to the driver app and fleet manager dashboard within 15 seconds. The cloud platform automatically generates regulatory compliance reports in PDF format compatible with WHO and CDSCO cold chain documentation requirements.
Can the platform integrate with existing ERP and warehouse management systems?
Yes, the cloud backend exposes RESTful APIs and supports webhook notifications for integration with third party systems. We have pre-built connectors for SAP, Oracle, and Tally ERP, and the event-driven architecture on AWS Lambda makes it straightforward to add new integrations. SwiftRoute successfully integrated the platform with their existing SAP S/4HANA warehouse management module within two weeks of deployment.
