Local Notifications

Local notifications allow an application to ask the Android OS to send a notification to the user and perform specific actions when tapped.

Note:
Local notifications appear when the vehicle is in motion. Each agency must review the notification behavior before enabling this feature to ensure that how they are applied meets with their driver policy.

The focus of local notifications is to provide critical information to the driver when running in the background, for example, when using Google Maps for navigation. Specifically, a notification is displayed if the destination the driver is navigating to has changed.

DriverMate only allows the user to navigate to the first event in the list. If that event is removed, or an event has been inserted, the driver is notified. Tapping anywhere on the notification sends instructions to Google Maps to navigate to the new location. If the driver needs more information at this point, then they must pull over and review the manifest when it is safe to do so.

When the current event changes, the following sequence of events occur:
  1. Notification appears.
  2. Device chimes and potentially vibrates.
  3. TTS triggers an announcement, "Trip cancelled. Press the navigate button to go to new destination."
When the driver taps the notification or the Navigate button on the notification, the following sequence of events occur:
  1. TTS triggers an announcement, "Navigating to the new location"
  2. DriverMate sends the new navigation coordinates to Google Maps.
  3. Google Maps updates the destination and navigation instructions.
Note:
The notification does not disappear automatically. The driver must dismiss it by either tapping the notification, clicking the button, or swiping. Note that swiping dismisses the notification but does not trigger a navigation update.

Notifications do not stack. When a notification is active and the current event changes, a new notification replaces the existing notification.

The sound and vibration that happen when a notification is displayed is not repeated, but will happen every time a new notification is created even if there is a notification already active.

Sample local notification shown on map

Configuration

Local notifications are not enabled by default. Each transit agency can decide if they want the driver interacting with the local notification while the vehicle is moving.

Table 1. Local Notification Settings
ID Name Description Default
3000 Local Notification Enable Enabled - true

Not enabled - false

 false

Android Configuration

When using an Android device, device level notification must be configured for DriverMate and detailed notifications should be enabled in the tablet settings.
Sample notification from tablet running Android OS v11
Note:
The image shows a Samsung tablet running Android OS v11. The appearance of the screen may be different on devices using other OS versions.