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Delivery tracking API

The Track That Ride delivery tracking API lets your platform create deliveries, follow each driver live, show customers a tracking page or your own map, and receive signed webhooks with proof of delivery when the job is done. You skip building GPS collection, ETAs, tracking pages and proof capture yourself.

What you would otherwise build

Live tracking looks like a map with a moving dot. Behind it are a driver app that keeps sending positions without draining the battery, a server that fans those positions out to the right customers and nobody else, ETAs that update when traffic changes, signed links customers cannot guess, a record of every handover, and an audit trail for disputes. Our build versus buy guide walks through each piece.

How the pieces fit

  1. Your system creates the delivery with POST /api/v1/rides and gets back a tracking token.
  2. A driver is assigned, by your dispatcher in the dashboard or by your system through the API.
  3. The driver’s phone sends positions through the Track That Ride driver web app while the delivery is in progress.
  4. Your customer follows it on the hosted tracking page, or in your own app through the delivery’s live stream, opened directly from the page.
  5. Your system hears the outcome through signed webhooks, with proof of delivery attached to delivery.completed.

Who it suits

Logistics start-ups that would rather ship features than tracking infrastructure, marketplaces and booking platforms that hand work to couriers, and courier firms with their own booking system. It suits teams that are happy for drivers to use our driver web app; if you need positions from your own native driver app, talk to us first.

Pricing for platforms

There is no charge per API call. You pay per delivery started (£0.40 each on the Free plan), or a monthly fee with an allowance on paid plans. See pricing.

What the API includes

  • REST API

    Create and manage deliveries, drivers, zones, webhooks and customer records over HTTPS with an API key.

  • Signed webhooks

    Get an HTTPS POST when a delivery is created, assigned, started, delivered or fails, signed with HMAC-SHA256 so you can verify it came from us.

  • Real-time stream

    Server-Sent Events stream live driver positions, status changes and ETAs. A delivery’s public stream can be opened straight from a web page on any domain; the company-wide stream is opened from your server.

  • Customer tracking links

    Every delivery gets a private, signed link. Your customer opens it in any browser to see the driver on the map, the ETA and each status change. No app to install.

  • ETAs

    An arrival time is worked out when the delivery starts and shown to the customer and your dispatcher. If it moves by more than ten minutes, the customer sees the new time.

  • Delivery audit trail

    Every status change is recorded with who made it, when, and the GPS position at the time, alongside what the customer was told and when they saw it. Export it as a PDF or JSON.

  • Photo proof of delivery

    Drivers take one to five photos at the handover, set by you. Each photo is stored against the delivery with the time and the driver’s location.

  • Scoped API keys

    Keys are stored hashed, carry per-resource permissions and their own rate limit, and can be rotated or revoked.

  • OpenAPI specification

    A machine-readable OpenAPI 3 description of the API.

Delivery tracking API questions

What is a delivery tracking API?

An API that lets your software create deliveries, follow drivers in real time and receive status changes, so you can show live tracking to your own customers without building GPS collection, maps, ETAs and proof of delivery yourself.

Where does the driver location come from?

From your drivers’ phones. Drivers use the Track That Ride driver web app, which sends their GPS position while they have it open. The API then streams those positions to your systems and to the customer’s tracking page.

Can I use my own driver app instead?

Not through the public API today: driver location updates and proof-of-delivery uploads are made by the Track That Ride driver web app, signed in as the driver. Your system creates and manages deliveries and receives the results.

Do I have to use your tracking page?

No. The hosted page is ready to send, but you can also read the public tracking JSON and live stream directly from your own page (they allow cross-origin reads) and draw the delivery in your own interface. The quickstarts show both plain JavaScript and the SDK.

How much does it cost?

API calls are not charged separately. On the Free plan you pay per delivery started; paid plans include a monthly allowance. See the pricing page for every plan.

Related

Try the API on the Free plan

Sign up free with no card, create an API key and send your first tracking link today.

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