The company is offering the service for £19.50 per month, which it says makes it more cost-effective than other leading products, despite the minimal contract commitment.

The new service has been introduced following the launch of the Quartix pay-as-you-go tracking solution in 2009 and is already said to be receiving a high rate of customer interest – new fleet customers signed up at a rate of five per day in September.

Andy Walters, Quartix managing director, said: 'Customers simply do not want to sign a five-year deal any more, and if a telematics supplier genuinely has confidence in the service and reliability of his product, then he shouldn't need to bind his customer in that way.

'We won tremendous acceptance from customers for our PAYG offering, which offered the right to cancel after three months. But many companies suggested they would be happy to sign up for 12 months if there were no installation charge, and so that is what we have done.'

Mr Walters added: 'Quartix is in a unique position to launch this service in the UK market: it is a strongly profitable company which is owned entirely by its management team and it develops and builds all its technology in the UK – whereas most tracking companies buy their hardware from third parties or overseas subsidiaries.'

The company launched the product with a test offer by e-mail at the beginning of September, and says it will follow this up with advertising and direct marketing campaigns throughout the autumn.