GPS Errors: Odometer Increasing/Decreasing By Substantial Amount

Understanding the Error

A data error resulting from a sudden and substantial change in odometer will almost always be caused by one of the following:

1. Hardware issue

Hardware issues can cause your device to occasionally report bad data. In this case you may notice sudden shifts in odometer reading that don’t reflect actual miles travelled by the vehicle. There are many reasons this can occur, such as if the device is an older model. You may decide to replace the device but this is not always necessary, as errors like this are likely to occur from time to time. 

2. Device was moved to a different vehicle

This means that the device was transferred to another vehicle or devices were swapped between vehicles without this change being updated in your connection.

⚠️IMPORTANT: Errors of this kind can usually be avoided if the device is transferred at the same time as the truck number is reassigned in your connection. Properly managing your truck numbers is a simple way to avoid delays and potential frustration.

 

Identifying and Resolving the Error

Once logged into your Truckspy account, click the Vehicles tab and then click on the truck number that has thrown an error.

If the error is a result of an unrealistic increase or decrease in odometer, you should see one of the following error messages:

“This vehicle has a data error: The ECM odometer decreased or increased by a substantial amount. This may indicate that the device was moved to a different truck and its number not updated.”

“This vehicle has a data error: It is impossible to travel [XXX] mi in a state per day, max allowed is 1500 mi, occurred on [Date]”

Click See Error.

This should take you to the Data View for this vehicle, and should automatically show you where the error is occurring. 

• Hardware Issue

If the error is the result of a hardware issue, you may see something similar to the example pictured below:

📖Note: The positions causing the error will in most cases be highlighted in red as seen in the above example. Positions highlighted in purple have not been processed.

Notice in the above example the single position highlighted in red. The odometer decreased by approximately 2.4 mi and then returned to normal after that. We can assume that in this case it is just one bad odometer reading and not an underlying issue. Ignoring this one position may temporarily resolve the issue, but if this has happened once it is likely to happen multiple times, throwing the same error. Instead, we will change the GPS enforcement on this vehicle.

Go back to the Vehicle Details page. You should see a box labelled Vehicle Information. Notice that the GPS Enforcement is set to ‘Strict.’ This is the default setting for all trucks.

 

Click Edit.

Select Semi-strict from the list and click Save.

You should notice when you refresh your page that the error disappears. You will still need to wait a couple hours for data to process after resolving the error, and then updated reports should be ready for download.

• Device Has Been Moved

If the error is the result of a device being moved or truck numbers being changed, you will likely see something similar to the below examples:

Notice that for both of these trucks, there is a sudden change in odometer with little to no time in between. In the first example there is a drastic decrease and in the second there is an increase. If you see something similar happening with one of your vehicles, it is likely that the device was moved before the change was made in your connection (Omnitracs, ISE, etc.). 

📖Note: If you have one vehicle with this issue, it is worth checking to see whether there are more like it. In this particular example, both of the above trucks belong to the same fleet. In the first example, the odometer decreases from 398215 to 362366 and in the second, the odometer increases from 362366 to 398219. This means that the devices in these two trucks were swapped, and therefore have the same error.

When you notice this issue, update the truck number(s) in your connection as soon as possible. The sooner you assign the device to the correct truck number, the sooner we can begin pulling data into the correct truck in your Truckspy account.

Notify Truckspy Support of the issue, as we will have to transfer data to the correct truck in order to eliminate the error and make sure you end up with accurate reports.

If your truck has an error that appears similar to the above examples but you have determined that the device was NOT moved, you may be dealing with a mileage gap which will need to be handled differently.