A geofence is a virtual boundary around a real-world location. When an asset crosses that boundary, the system can fire an alert, log an event, or trigger an automated workflow. That's the technical definition. The practical definition, for a fleet operator, is simpler: a geofence is how you tell the software what "normal" looks like. Anything outside normal becomes an alert.
The two shapes — radius vs polygon
Every geofencing system gives you two basic options:
- Radius geofences are circles. You drop a pin, set a distance (50ft, 500ft, half a mile), done. Use these when the boundary doesn't have to be precise — a customer's address, a job site rough location, a parking lot.
- Polygon geofences are custom shapes. You draw the boundary by clicking points on a map. Use these when the real-world boundary matters — your yard with its specific fence line, an L-shaped warehouse, a job site that backs up to a property you don't own.
Most operators end up with a mix. Yards and warehouses get polygons. Customer sites and rough zones get radii. The thing to avoid is using a giant radius when you really need a polygon — that's how you end up with a "yard" geofence that includes the gas station across the street and fires an alert every time someone fills up a truck.
Entry vs exit alerts
For each geofence you can usually set three triggers:
- Entry — fires when an asset crosses the boundary going in. Useful for "trailer arrived at job site" workflows.
- Exit — fires when an asset crosses going out. Useful for "trailer left the yard" workflows.
- Both — fires on either direction. Useful for hourly customer-site logs ("crew was on site from 9 to 11").
The mistake to avoid: turning on "both" everywhere. You'll get pinged 200 times a day and stop reading the alerts within a week. Set entry-only or exit-only based on what you actually need to know about.
Time windows — the missing feature most operators don't use
The single most useful geofence feature is the one most people skip: time-of-day rules. A trailer leaving your yard at 9am is normal. The same trailer leaving at 2:30am is not. Every good fleet platform should let you set business-hours geofences that fire alerts only outside the window you set.
On AlwaysTracked specifically, you set business hours per geofence (or per asset class) and the system silently logs business-hours movement and pages you on after-hours movement. This is how a landscape company catches a trailer being stolen overnight without getting paged every morning when the crew loads up.
The four geofences every fleet operator should set up
Skip the temptation to set up 40 zones on day one. Start with these four:
- Your main yard or shop. Polygon, drawn around the actual fence line. Exit alert with after-hours rule. This is your primary theft-prevention zone.
- Your overnight storage locations. If trailers overnight at your foreman's house or a satellite lot, polygon those too. Same after-hours rule.
- A "service area" boundary. Big radius around your operating territory. Exit alert. If a trailer leaves your county, you want to know immediately.
- Each active job site or rental address. Smaller radius, automatic create/delete from your dispatch or rental software. Logs entry and exit so you have a paper trail.
That's it. Four zone types covers 95% of fleet ops. Add more as specific situations come up. Resist the urge to over-engineer it — every zone is a potential false alarm.
How to avoid alert fatigue
Alert fatigue is the silent killer of fleet tracking systems. The dashboard works fine, the geofences work fine, but if you get 80 alerts a day you stop reading them. Within a month you've gone back to running the business by feel.
Three rules to prevent it:
- Use after-hours rules religiously. No alert at all during normal business hours. Save the pings for the times when something actually shouldn't be happening.
- Set the radius bigger than you think. A 100-foot radius around a yard fires every time a truck reverses. A 500-foot radius is usually right.
- Use SMS only for true emergencies. Email or in-app for everything else. SMS is for "trailer stolen" — not for "crew loaded up."
Common mistakes
Things we see operators do wrong on day one:
- Drawing the polygon too tight. GPS isn't perfect, especially indoors. A polygon that hugs the actual fence line will fire false alerts every time a tag's accuracy drifts. Add 20 feet of buffer.
- Forgetting overnight zones. If a foreman takes a trailer home, his driveway needs to be a geofence too, or you'll get an "exit" alert every time he leaves for work.
- Treating customer addresses as polygons. Use a radius. The customer's actual driveway shape doesn't matter.
- Setting alerts on assets that don't need them. A hand tool that lives in the truck doesn't need its own geofence. Tag it, but skip the alert.
Industry-specific geofence patterns
The right pattern depends on what you do. A few common ones:
- Equipment rental: yard polygon with exit alert + auto-generated radius around each active rental address.
- Construction: yard polygon + per-jobsite polygons that you create when work starts and archive when it ends.
- Landscaping: yard + crew-leader-driveway overnight zones + a wide service-area radius.
- Vacation rentals: per-property radius for each managed home + an island-wide service area boundary.
The bottom line
Geofencing is the difference between "knowing where things are" and "knowing when something matters." A fleet without geofences is just a moving wallpaper of dots. A fleet with three or four well-set zones turns into an alert system that runs itself.
Start with four zones. Use after-hours rules. Don't draw your polygons too tight. Save SMS for emergencies. That's the whole game.
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