Active (real-time) AVL systems allow companies to contact their vehicles any time, day or night, to determine current location and immediately retrieve other vehicle usage data. The location of the vehicle could be displayed on a street level map at the "base station" which would typically be the company PC. This real-time connection is provided through the nationwide analog wireless cellular system whereby you are simply making a wireless cellular phone call through the modem on your PC to the analog cellular modem within the AVL hardware on the vehicle. Analog cellular is often used because it offers much better coverage range than the current digital cellular system.

When this wireless connection is made, the user can choose to request only the current, real-time vehicle location or request all of the available vehicle usage data that is stored in the AVL hardware on the vehicle.