Mapping, routing & navigation
Mapping, routing and navigation consultancy for fleet and telematics platforms
Vendor-neutral selection of map data, geocoding, routing engines, commercial-vehicle navigation and ETA services — with licensing models that scale with your revenue rather than against it.
Why mapping deserves board attention
Location is your product's most visible feature — and often its second-largest cost
Every telematics, video telematics and asset-tracking platform lives on a map. Customers judge your product by how accurately it places vehicles, how quickly it renders, how well it routes a 44-tonne vehicle around a low bridge and how reliable its ETAs are. Behind that sits a licensing bill that grows with every map load, geocode and route request.
We have selected and negotiated mapping and routing stacks for telematics platforms serving large fleets. We do not resell any provider, so our advice is based on fit, accuracy and total cost of ownership.
What we advise on
- Base map data, tile services and map styling
- Geocoding, reverse geocoding and address validation
- Map matching and snap-to-road for mileage and speed evidence
- Routing engines, multi-stop optimisation and time windows
- Commercial-vehicle routing: height, weight, width, hazmat and clean-air zones
- Live and predictive traffic, ETA and arrival notifications
- In-cab and driver-app turn-by-turn navigation, including offline
- Geofencing, points of interest and speed-limit datasets
The mapping stack
Nine components, each with its own selection criteria
| Component | What it does for your platform | What we evaluate |
|---|---|---|
| Base map & tiles | Renders the map your users look at all day | Coverage and freshness by territory, rendering performance, styling and dark-mode support, tile-hosting terms |
| Geocoding | Turns addresses into coordinates and back again | Accuracy at postcode, building and rural level, batch throughput, cost per request, address-validation quality |
| Map matching | Snaps GPS points to roads for mileage, speeding and route replay | Accuracy in urban canyons and at low fix rates, speed-limit data quality, evidential reliability |
| Routing engine | Calculates routes, distances and multi-stop sequences | Optimisation quality, time-window support, vehicle profiles, response times, batch pricing |
| Commercial-vehicle attributes | Keeps HGVs, plant and specialist vehicles legal and safe | Bridge, weight, width, hazmat and clean-air-zone data coverage; update frequency |
| Traffic & ETA | Predicts arrival times and delays | Historic versus live data, predictive accuracy on your lanes, customer-notification integration |
| Navigation SDKs | Turn-by-turn guidance in cab or on a driver app | Offline capability, voice guidance, integration effort, device compatibility, per-driver licensing |
| Geofencing & POI | Detects site arrivals, restricted zones and dwell time | Polygon limits, event latency, POI database licensing and ownership |
| Open-data alternatives | Self-hosted maps and routing to cut licence cost | Data quality for your territories, infrastructure and refresh effort, engineering ownership |
Commercial and technical fit
The questions that decide the right provider
Licensing model
Per asset, per transaction, per active user or enterprise flat-rate — we model your real usage so the licence scales with revenue.
Coverage and freshness
A provider that excels in the UK may be weak in the Middle East or Eastern Europe. We test against your actual territories and routes.
Specialist routing
HGV, plant, refuse, utilities and emergency fleets each need different attributes and behaviours from a routing engine.
Platform integration
SDK maturity, API rate limits, tile hosting, caching rules and how the provider's terms interact with your own product's usage.
Data privacy and residency
Where location data is processed and stored, and what the provider may retain — critical for public-sector and enterprise tenders.
Exit and dual-sourcing
Avoiding lock-in through abstraction layers, contract terms and a credible plan to switch or self-host if pricing changes.
How a selection project runs
From usage model to signed agreement
Requirements and usage model
Territories, vehicle types, features, and a forecast of map loads, geocodes and route requests per asset per month.
Shortlist and benchmark
Candidates are tested on your real routes and addresses for accuracy, speed and commercial-vehicle behaviour.
Commercial evaluation
Total cost of ownership over three to five years at your growth plan, including migration and engineering effort.
Negotiation and integration plan
Contract terms, price-down schedules and a phased integration roadmap with your engineering team or our development partners.
Questions we're often asked
Mapping and routing FAQ
Why not just use the biggest consumer mapping provider?
Sometimes that is the right answer — but not always. Consumer-grade services can become expensive at fleet scale, may lack commercial-vehicle attributes such as height, weight and width restrictions, and may impose usage terms that conflict with how a telematics platform works. We benchmark the options against your usage profile and routes before recommending.
What is truck-specific or commercial-vehicle routing?
Routing that respects the vehicle's physical and legal constraints — bridge heights, weight and width limits, hazardous-goods restrictions, low-emission and clean-air zones, and turning limitations — rather than treating every vehicle like a car. For HGV, plant and specialist fleets it is a safety issue as much as an efficiency one.
How are mapping and routing services usually priced?
Common models include per-asset-per-month, per-transaction or per-map-load, monthly active users, and enterprise flat-rate agreements. The right model depends on how your platform generates map loads, geocodes and route requests. We model your real usage so that the licence scales with revenue rather than eroding it.
Can we host our own maps or routing engine?
Yes, and for some platforms it is the most economical option. Open-data map sources and self-hosted routing engines can replace or supplement commercial APIs, at the cost of infrastructure, data-refresh and engineering effort. We help you weigh that total cost of ownership honestly.
Do you build the integration?
We specify, select and negotiate, and we can project-manage integration through our network of outsourced development partners or alongside your own engineering team. We do not resell any mapping provider.
Related expertise
Adjacent services that usually go hand in hand
IoT connectivity consultancy
The GNSS, cellular and low-power networks that generate the positions your maps display.
Read more →Hardware sourcing & supplier selection
Devices with the GNSS performance and processing to support accurate map matching and navigation.
Read more →All consultancy services
Product strategy, UX and platform architecture — the wider workstreams that mapping decisions sit inside.
Read more →Next step
Reviewing your mapping or routing provider?
Book a free discovery call and we'll outline a benchmark plan for your platform and territories.
Book a discovery call →