A vehicle tracking API gives your software the location and trip data of a fleet without you building the tracking stack yourself. Your app or platform calls the API for live positions, trip histories, driving scores and events, and shows them in your own dispatch screen, customer app or reports.
This guide covers what a vehicle and driver tracking API does, where its data comes from, what Damoov’s APIs expose, how the data reaches your systems, and how to evaluate a provider. If you are planning the whole product, see our guide to fleet management app development.
Moreover, fleet management as a business is also changing. From fleets where 100% of vehicles are owned by a company (and drivers are on the payroll), we move to a structure where multiple parties and drivers who own the cars are independent operators. The role of fleet management companies in such cases is to play the role of the aggregator.
In the aggregator model, having reliable solutions integrated into the management tool is even more essential to ensure reliability and customer satisfaction.
What a Vehicle Tracking API Does
A tracking API answers two kinds of question. Where is everyone now? That is live location: each driver’s current position, the trip in progress and the last known location when a device goes offline. What happened? That is history: each trip with its route, timing and events, and scores that summarize how it was driven.
Vehicle tracking and driver tracking are not quite the same. A tracker fixed in a vehicle follows the vehicle. A phone-based tracker follows the driver across whatever vehicle they use, which matters when drivers use their own cars, swap vans or work for several operators.
Where the Data Comes From: Vehicle, Device or Smartphone
Every tracking API sits on top of a data source, and the source decides what you can build.
| Source | How it works | Strong when | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carmaker (OEM) data | Reads the vehicle’s built-in telematics through the manufacturer | Newer vehicles from supported makes | Coverage depends on make, model and owner consent |
| Plug-in or installed device | An OBD dongle or black box in each vehicle | Owned fleets that also want engine data | A device to buy, install and maintain per vehicle |
| Smartphone SDK | An SDK in the driver’s app records trips from the phone’s sensors | Contracted drivers, mixed vehicles, fast rollout | Data follows the phone, so tracking rules belong in your app |
Damoov is the smartphone option: no hardware install, and the same SDK feeds live location, trips and scores.
What Damoov’s Tracking APIs Expose
Damoov’s APIs are REST with JWT authentication, scoped to your tenant, plus a WebSocket stream for live positions.
| Need | What you call | Docs |
|---|---|---|
| Live location | REST: current location, current trip, last known location. WebSocket: a live position stream | Live GPS Tracker API |
| Trip history | Trip lists, trip details, waypoints and events | Trips reference |
| Scores and statistics | Daily and accumulated safety and eco scores, driving statistics | Safety score reference |
| Events | Geofence enter, exit and dwell; device online and offline; trip started and completed; tracking link created and completed; speed exceeded | Live GPS Tracker API |
| Customer tracking links | One call creates a temporary public link (1 minute to 7 days) that shows one delivery on a live map, no login | live fleet map and tracking links |
Authentication
Requests are authenticated with JSON Web Tokens. A user token gives access to one driver’s data, which suits a driver app. An admin token gives access to all data in your tenant, which suits a dispatch dashboard or backend job. See Authentication in the docs.
Getting Data Out: Pull, Stream or Push
- Pull: call the REST API when your system needs data, for example a trip list for a nightly report.
- Stream: open the WebSocket connection to keep a live map current without polling.
- Push: subscribe to events and receive them as they happen, through a webhook or one of five delivery channels (webhook, AWS SNS, Google Pub/Sub, Azure Service Bus, Azure Event Grid). Webhook payloads are signed with HMAC-SHA256 so your backend can verify them.
Example: Embed a Live Fleet Map
The fastest way to see live data in your own portal is the embeddable map. From the Live GPS Tracker API docs:
<iframe
src="https://spa.telematicssdk.com/live-tracking/embedded-map?instanceId=YOUR_INSTANCE&jwt=YOUR_JWT"
width="100%"
height="600px"
frameborder="0">
</iframe>Replace YOUR_INSTANCE and YOUR_JWT with your own values. Build your own UI on the REST and WebSocket APIs when you outgrow the embed.
Capturing the Data: the SDK
The APIs deliver what the Telematics SDK records. The SDK runs inside your driver app on iOS and Android, with React Native and Flutter support. It detects trips and uploads the data, and your app decides when tracking runs: automatically, on demand, or on a schedule such as working hours. For location-only use cases, see location tracking.
How to Evaluate a Vehicle Tracking API
- Data source: OEM, device or phone? It decides your coverage and rollout cost.
- Live and history: can you get current positions and full trips with events, or only one of them?
- Delivery: REST only, or also a live stream and pushed events into your own systems?
- Docs and sandbox: public documentation and a sandbox you can try without a sales call.
- Security: token-based authentication, tenant scoping, signed webhooks.
You can try Damoov’s Telematics API in a sandbox that is free for 90 days, with no credit card required.
Useful links
- Company website: Damoov telematics platform
- Open-source telematics app: Damoov telematics app
- Telematics SDK: Damoov telematics SDK
- Telematics API: Damoov telematics API
- Developer portal: Damoov documentation
- Datahub: Damoov DataHub
- Github: Damoov SDK on GitHub