Live Tracking & Expected Arrival (ETA)

While a tour is running, Orbit shows where the vehicle is and when it is expected at each stop. Both are live estimates that update as the tour progresses — not fixed promises.

Live tracking

Live tracking shows the vehicle's position on a map. It comes from the driver's device location in Orbit Cockpit, the driver app. As the driver moves, their device sends its position, and the tour's Tracking view updates to match.

Because the position comes from a phone or tablet, it depends on that device being on, in coverage, and permitted to share its location. When it isn't, there is simply no live position for a while — which is normal, and covered below.

Expected arrival (ETA)

The expected arrival — the ETA — is Orbit's estimate of when the vehicle will reach each stop, shown as Expected Arrival against the stop. Orbit works it out in one of two ways:

From a live GPS position, when the driver's device is sharing its location — the more precise estimate.
From status updates and logged times, when there is no live position — still a useful estimate, just based on progress rather than a live fix.

An ETA is an estimate that moves. It is recalculated as the position, the tour's progress, and traffic change, so a stop shown as arriving at 14:20 might read 14:35 ten minutes later. Nothing has broken — the estimate has simply updated. For stops already visited, the tracking view shows the driver's actual logged time instead of an estimate.

When no ETA is shown — this is normal

An ETA isn't always available, and its absence usually means "nothing to estimate yet" rather than a fault:

Before the tour starts — there is no journey under way to estimate, so no live ETA or position exists yet.
After the tour is completed — the run is over; what remains are the actual logged times, not an estimate.
No live signal — if the driver's device is offline or not sharing its location, live tracking pauses and the ETA falls back to a status-based estimate.
Visibility settings — whether a shipper is shown live tracking and the ETA is controlled by a setting, so a customer may see less than an operator does.

ETA versus the planned window

It is easy to confuse the live ETA with the planned time window from the TimingGuide, but they answer different questions:

The planned window (TimingGuide) is worked out before the tour runs. It is the corridor of times a stop can be served within so the tour stays feasible — a plan, not a prediction.
The ETA is a live estimate of the actual arrival, produced while the tour is running.
The logged arrival is the fact — recorded once the driver actually arrives.

One stop can carry all three, and they can legitimately differ. For what the planned window means and how it is calculated, see Understanding the TimingGuide.

Controlling what shippers see

Live GPS tracking and the ETA can each be shown to or hidden from shippers. There is a tenant-wide default under Settings → Tracking — "Enable GPS tracking for shippers" and "Enable ETA display for shippers" — and individual tours can override it. This is why the same tour can show an ETA to your team but not to the customer.

FAQ

Why is there no ETA on this tour?
Most often because the tour hasn't started yet or has already finished — there is nothing live to estimate. It can also be hidden from shippers by a visibility setting. None of these is an error.

Why did the expected arrival time change?
An ETA is a live estimate that updates with the vehicle's position, the tour's progress, and traffic. A changing time is the estimate doing its job, not a fault.

The map isn't showing the vehicle. Is tracking broken?
Usually not. Live position comes from the driver's device in Orbit Cockpit; if it is offline, out of coverage, or not sharing location, there is no live position for a while and the ETA falls back to a status-based estimate.

Is the planned window the same as the ETA?
No. The planned window (TimingGuide) is set before the tour runs and marks when a stop can be served; the ETA is a live estimate of when it will be. See Understanding the TimingGuide.