Rental companies already keep track of their equipment. Whether they use equipment rental management software or pen-and-paper logs, these companies keep check-out logs, reservation calendars, and maintenance records. However, these only tell part of the story — the part where the rental company has possession of the equipment. Once it’s handed over to the customer, it could be anywhere. Companies using these traditional methods are forced to trust that the customer will always return the equipment, and any rental company will tell you that doesn’t work out as often as they’d like.
The United States equipment rental industry reached more than $80 billion in revenue in 2025, according to the American Rental Association. Equipment theft accounts for as much as $1 billion in losses for the construction sector alone, which means tracking machinery at all times can be a huge money-saver for rental companies. Whether equipment is lost due to renters moving it where it shouldn’t be, failure to return it, or outright theft, preventing these losses is understandably a high priority in the industry.
Using rental inventory management software combined with GPS equipment tracking devices presents a solution. With these solutions, rental companies gain visibility into where their equipment is around the clock, even when renters take it off-site. Track Your Truck offers trackers specially made for such machines, adding an extra layer of protection for rental fleets.
Most rental companies use inventory software of some kind to handle the business side of their operations. These platforms take care of reservations, pricing, customer records, maintenance schedules, and check-in/check-out logs. These functions are essential, but they don’t cover the period of time while the customer has possession of the equipment. This leaves rental companies effectively blind to where the equipment is after it leaves the yard.
This is where GPS tracking fills the gap. With a tracking device installed on a piece of equipment, rental companies gain insight into its real-time location, movement alerts, geofencing, and route histories. They can tell at a glance whether the machine is where it should be or if it’s been moved to an unauthorized site. Using both inventory management and GPS tracking platforms means companies can confirm the rental agreement and compliance with its terms. Because Track Your Truck’s devices work independently of any equipment rental software, they can layer easily on top of any system already in use.
Standard GPS truck trackers can be plugged into the vehicle’s OBD port to power them. That poses a problem with construction equipment, trailers, and generators because these assets typically don’t have an OBD port. However, specialty trackers are available that can run on the equipment’s batteries, solar power, or their own long-life internal batteries. The battery-powered trackers attach to trailers and containers with magnets, meaning there’s practically no work needed to install them. Track Your Truck also provides satellite-powered tracker units that provide coverage in areas where cellular networks can’t reach. This provides comprehensive tracking for all types of equipment offered by rental companies.
Theft and unauthorized use are two of the biggest problems facing rental companies, and GPS tracking offers the solution. Without tracking devices installed on assets, only about 20% of stolen construction equipment is ever recovered. With GPS rental equipment tracking, recovery rates for stolen assets can be raised by as much as 85%. Because they provide the exact location of equipment, trackers help law enforcement find and recover stolen assets within 48 hours in most cases.
The NetTrack platform allows rental companies to establish geofencing that puts virtual boundaries around their equipment yards as well as customers’ jobsites. This means the companies can be alerted the instant an asset is moved outside of those boundaries, cutting down on unauthorized use that can lead to damage as well as preventing theft. Alerts also can be configured to let rental companies know if equipment is being moved after hours, which typically is a sign of theft or unapproved usage. Managers can receive push notifications, text messages, or emails to let them know when this is happening.
Track Your Truck’s GPS tracking provides real-time movement and ignition data. This tells rental companies a lot about the actual utilization of their assets. The rental industry tends to aim for utilization rates of 70% to 80%, with assets falling below that rate earmarked for sale. Track Your Truck provides these metrics as well as idle-to-active ratios, days between rentals, and geographic demand patterns to help rental companies make decisions related to purchasing, pricing, and fleet size. With 125-day histories for each unit stored on the NetTrack platform, rental managers can review utilization trends over time and identify which of their assets are in highest demand.
With the actual utilization data Track Your Truck’s GPS trackers deliver, rental managers also can make better-informed decisions about maintenance to keep their equipment in good condition. Engine-hour monitoring includes automated alerts for maintenance tasks based on actual usage, rather than relying on a static calendar. This is important because rental equipment usage can vary a lot between renters. By pairing the GPS data with a check-in/check-out inspection process, rental companies can have a complete maintenance history that includes runtime between services, movement patterns, idle time, and geofence boundary violations that could indicate rough usage.
Equipment owners have the legal right to track their own assets using GPS in all 50 states. Nevertheless, it’s considered best practice throughout the rental industry to disclose such tracking in the rental agreement for full transparency. A tracking clause in the agreement should disclose that the asset is being tracked, define the authorized use zones, and specify that tampering with the tracking device is a breach of contract. Rental companies usually prefer hardwired GPS trackers because they are out of sight and therefore difficult to find and remove.
Track Your Truck makes adding GPS tracking to a rental fleet easy. We recommend identifying the top 10 to 20 pieces of equipment most vulnerable to loss, theft, or unauthorized relocation for the first trackers. Hardwired units take about 30 to 60 minutes to install, whereas magnetic battery-powered units for trailers attach in less than a minute. Track Your Truck offers free devices with plans starting at $15.99 per month per vehicle, as well as a 30-day money-back guarantee and a two-year warranty. Our U.S.-based support team also is available to answer questions, with most issues resolved within 15 minutes. Get in touch with us today to learn more about what we have to offer.
