Rallying is a dangerous and competitive sport. It involves speed, unpredictable weather conditions, challenging roads, and countless possibilities for something to go wrong. It's pure excitement, but with such excitement comes immense risk. For the 4rally team — the professional EU-based race organizers — ensuring the safety of participants and rally racers is a top priority. They leverage their extensive experience and modern technologies, including vehicle tracking and management, to keep drivers safe and races running smoothly.
4rally is a leading rally management company based in Lithuania, with its head office in Vilnius, the same city as Gurtam. They specialize in helping organize and control rallies worldwide and provide comprehensive support, including telematics-powered notifications systems, race management service, and documentation handling. Operating in over 21 countries, they have successfully managed over 100 events. 4rally integrates advanced hardware and software solutions to ensure race safety and compliance with FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) standards and guidelines.
In early 2024, seeking to enhance their GPS tracking capabilities, 4rally conducted a series of productive discussions and selected Wialon, Gurtam’s flagship vehicle tracking platform, as their new telemetry base platform.
The unique aspect of this partnership with 4rally lies in their specialized role as a telematics service provider for racing events. Unlike typical system providers, 4rally not only offers solutions but also utilizes the same tracking equipment and software for managing their own fleets — mirroring the needs of their clients. At Gurtam, the Wialon platform is generally offered for system providers rather than fleet owners, which makes this collaboration with 4rally particularly distinctive, challenging, and inspiring.
We sat down with Maris Simson, CEO of 4rally, to discuss the business, their recent partnership with Gurtam, and the role of safety in rally sports.
– Let’s start from the beginning. What led you to this field?
– I was a racer myself back in the early 2000s. Back then, safety on the track was managed by radio points every 5 kilometers, marking cars' progress. One car didn't pass the radio point during a race in the Kaunas region (a region in Lithuania). The rescue team was unable to quickly identify the location of the incident or arrive to provide assistance.
The car had flown off the track, through the bushes, leaving no trace on the road. Later, spectators pointed to the scene of the accident. Rescuers finally arrived in place after around 15-20 minutes but didn’t have time to save the pilot. There might have been a chance if the response time had been shorter.
That incident got me thinking about better solutions for rally accidents and how to prevent cases like this, which unfortunately happen in this sport pretty often. There were a few options on the market, but the handover of the position often took longer than 1 minute and frequently failed when spectators' usage overloaded the network. We needed something faster and more reliable. That’s how I started developing our own system — 4rally STS (Safety Tracking System — which has been evolving for over twelve years to date.
– So, 4rally STS is a rally management system. What can it do?
– My team has complete control of the race from the very heart of the Rally HQ (the race control center). In real-time, we see each car’s location on track, its speed, and movement direction. We also monitor ignition status, start/stop reporting, distress button messages, zone alerts, and maintenance messages.
Our 4rally STS system monitors race results comprehensively, including event timing and results management. It features an online platform for spectators to monitor the race and track results in real-time, making the event more engaging.
The system’s most crucial feature is its integration with multi-functioning emergency services, like ambulances or firefighters. If help is needed, the competitors' crew sends an SOS, and the race control center ensures that services reach the incident location in less than 4-5 minutes.
– Your system is inconceivable without GPS monitoring, as it is literally one of its fundamental components. Now, Gurtam’s flagship product, Wialon, is part of it. Could you please share what you are looking for in a telematics solution?
– We operate in over 20 countries, so we need a service that works internationally. Accessibility is critical — Gurtam guarantees 99.5% uptime. Undoubtedly, the system's flexibility and reliability are crucial because our service is responsible for people's lives. We handle around 50 accidents a year; sometimes, the system has less than 30 seconds to get the information of a critical incident and transfer the signal to the next arriving speeding car to avoid an accident ahead.
Reliability is non-negotiable when choosing a partner. The service must not crash and must work without delays. For the insurance investigations related to accidents, we also require a solution that stores data for over a year. Insurance companies may request information at any time during these procedures.
Also, the FIA regularly publishes Rally safety guidelines, which include tracking system recommendations and specifications with essential requirements. We considered various vehicle management platforms and settled on Wialon, which meets our needs.
Rally is an extremely dangerous event. The time of reaction has the highest priority. Wialon sends commands to different kinds of HW devices almost immediately: in practice, with the data we already have with 4rally, it takes about 2 seconds to trigger the alert.
Artiom Romanovskiy, Head of Partner Growth, Wialon
– You provide race management services in Germany, Ireland, Belgium, Japan, Kenya, Australia, and clearly in Baltic countries, and also provide consultations and other support services to other organizers. In your opinion, what does a telematics system bring to rally organizers?
– Safety. Previously, we couldn't effectively control the stages: nobody knew what happened with race vehicles between radio point locations. Now, each car is equipped with GPS tracking hardware and various buttons and signals to transfer information. Modern rallies begin with a briefing for the crew on the installation and usage of this system.
If there’s a fire on the track, and pilots see it, they press the corresponding button in their car, and the fire team can be there within minutes. Our system is two-way. Not only do we receive signals, but we also send them, stay in touch with the crews, and stop the car if needed.
GPS hardware equipment also significantly contributes to controlling competitors while familiarizing them with the tracks and ensuring fair conditions for all participants. The competition control center can monitor each crew’s movement, location, and speed, direction, car voltage. Anyone violating restrictions can be asked to explain the situation or face penalties.
– We’ve talked a lot about software; what about hardware?
– We work with different hardware However, our team customizes and finalizes all solutions. Rally equipment operates in overload mode and must withstand big vibrations and impacts. We have our own base and laboratory in Lithuania, where we test, update, and develop trackers.
– Your headquarters is in Lithuania. What other projects does 4rally have here?
– We organize work with all Lithuanian Rally Championship events and several races race outside of the championship. Our team has been working together for over ten years.
We also have a separate project, the Women's Rally, organized since 2015. It’s one of the most popular leisure events for active women in Lithuania. It’s a race for amateurs, but it still follows the principles and rules of a professional rally. Events like these help us popularize motorsport. For example, in 2024, almost 200 crews will participate in the competition.
Wialon is Gurtam's flagship product, the ultimate platform for fleet management and IoT. It offers real-time GPS tracking, geofencing, fuel management, sensor data collection, advanced reporting, tools for managing driver behavior, and more.
Gurtam products are stored and administered in data centers in the Netherlands and the USA. The guaranteed uptime is 99.5%. Over 4,5 million vehicles and other assets worldwide are currently connected to Gurtam software solutions.