Fleet Management Glossary

AIS 140 is an Automotive Industry Standard covering intelligent transportation systems in India. It specifies the requirements for vehicle location tracking devices and emergency buttons on notified categories of public service and commercial vehicles, including how the device must report to a state backend control centre.

A bilty is the consignment note an Indian road transporter issues when it takes goods into its custody — the document that records what was picked up, from whom, for whom, and on what freight terms. It is the same document more formally called a lorry receipt (LR) or goods receipt (GR).

A lorry receipt (LR) is the transport document a road carrier issues when it accepts goods for carriage. It proves the carrier took custody of the consignment and records the terms of carriage, which makes it both the receipt and the evidence of the contract.

POD stands for proof of delivery — the signed or digitally captured acknowledgement that a consignee received a consignment, in what condition and when. In most freight arrangements the POD is what permits the carrier to invoice, which is why an uncollected POD is an unpaid trip.

TAT, or turnaround time, is the elapsed time to complete a defined cycle in a logistics operation. In fleet operations it most often means vehicle turnaround — the time from a vehicle arriving at a facility to leaving it — though it is also used for the order-to-delivery cycle, which is a different measurement entirely.

A VLTD, or Vehicle Location Tracking Device, is a GPS tracking unit certified against India's AIS 140 standard and required on certain categories of commercial and public service vehicles. Beyond reporting position, it must transmit to a state backend control centre and, on passenger vehicles, support emergency buttons.