server - Fleet tracking software options

Before I sit down and make the mistake of start writing my own, I wanted to know my options for good, modern, fleet tracking options that are not too expensive. What I am looking for is something that doesn't look like it was built in 1995 and that will not cost me an arm and a leg as I scale up. Brownie points if the project is Open Source, but using a hosted solution will do just fine provided that it is not too expensive.

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  What are people using to track on the field assets in realtime?

  
  


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  If price was not an issue, what would you use?

  
  

Update: Hardware is not much of an issue for this project. There are several spare servers with plenty of bandwidth and redundant drives connected to the Internet 24/7. As far as client hardware, there are several of-the-shelf devices with GPS and connection to the internet, not to mention that some of these devices will be modified smart phones. My concentration is now more related to the server and web front end software I will use for this.

Update 2: I was asked for a use case - so I will give a simplified version. A company that does deliveries wants to know where their fleet is. There are several managers and each of them manage a chunk of delivery trucks. Each of the managers (there are about 100) is only interested in their delivery trucks (each has around 20) and wants to see them in realtime at - the same time -on a web map. Each driver wants to see where their partners are, too - but this is secondary. Privacy issues are just that each manager will be able to see their own drivers only. I have any other data required (streets, geofences, etc - but that is a separate discussion - I am looking only for this basic functionality). Yes, some time-based reports about where the trucks are/were will be necessary.

Answer

After following some links from an article that Celenius mentioned I ran into OneBusAway. An Open Source project by the University of Washington that is developing Apache licensed modern applications (web, iPhone, Android) and modules to solve tracking problems.