Fleet Locate GPS Fleet Tracking Blog

The U.S. Department of Transportation has made it official: Drivers of commercial trucks and buses that weigh more than 10,000 pounds are prohibited from sending text messages on hand-held devices while their behind the wheel.

Under the ban, effective January 26, 2010, drivers caught texting while driving commercial vehicles may be subject to civil or criminal penalties of up to $2,750, according to the DOT.

There’s good data to back up the ban. Truck and heavy-vehicle drivers who text-message while driving are 23.2 times more likely to be involved in a crash or near-crash as non-distracted motorists, according to research conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

This data should be of particular interest to vehicle fleet operators. Using a cell phone while driving is distracting enough, but texting behind the wheel while driving really ratchets up the un-safety factor.

While solutions such as GPS fleet tracking can’t prevent a driver from texting his sweetie from out on the highway, it can help reduce another behavior that often occurs while texting: speeding. A texting driver is less likely to keep an eye on the speedometer, which can lead to high-speed accidents.

What? You say your drivers aren’t speeding? They’ve never gotten a speeding ticket while on the job? Well, there’s one way to find out for sure: GPS vehicle tracking. As you might know from using a GPS navigation device in your car, a vehicle’s speed can be easily tracked and recorded through GPS tracking system. Using any Internet-connected computer, you’ll be able to view the current speed of each vehicle in your fleet, and keep a record of it.

If you detect a pattern of excessive speed, the GPS fleet tracking system can generate a printed report that you can use to discuss the problem with an offending driver. You can reiterate your company’s speeding policy and possibly offer incentives to reward drivers who stay within your limits over time. We’ve found that fleets using GPS vehicle tracking can reduce excessive speeding by 50% and significantly reduce accident rates.

Getting back to texting, Virginia Tech’s recommendations, based on findings from research studies, are as follows:

• Driving is a visual task and non-driving activities that draw the driver’s eyes away from the roadway, such as texting and dialing, should always be avoided.
• Texting should be banned in moving vehicles for all drivers. This cell phone task has the potential to create a true crash epidemic if texting-type tasks continue to grow in popularity and the generation of frequent text-message senders reaches driving age in large number.
• “Headset” cell phone use is not substantially safer than “handheld” use because the primary risk is associated with both tasks is answering, dialing, and other tasks that require the driver’s eyes to be off the road. In contrast, “true hands-free” phone use, such as voice-activated systems, are less risky if they are designed well enough so the driver does not have to take his or her eyes off the road often or for long periods.
• All cell phone use should be banned for newly licensed teen drivers. Our research has shown that teens tend to engage in cell phone tasks much more frequently and in much more risky situations, than adults. Thus, our studies indicate that teens are four times more likely to get into a related crash or near crash event than their adult counterparts.

You might not be able to take cell phones away from drivers, but you can take away their right to drive if you catch them speeding too often. Here’s one way to find out: While viewing their route in real time, text them a message when you see that they’re speeding. If they don’t reply, good for them. If they do reply, it’s time for you to have a little chat with them—in person, not by text!

Advances in GPS fleet tracking-style technology on the golf course keep getting more interesting. Last year saw the introduction of handheld, waterproof devices that calculate a golfer’s distance to the center of the green or other features of the golf course, so he/she can select the proper club.

Now there’s a wireless GPS tracking system from SkyCaddie that lets golfers embed a chip in the butt end of their clubs. Why would they want to do that? So they can learn how far they hit each club and then create a personal profile for them. After that, each time a golfer checks his or her yardage, a club-ranging meter displays where the distance fits within their range of clubs.

This aptly named SmartClub Technology, the company says, “adds intelligence and a wireless communication link to each club in a golfer’s bag. Upon removal of a club from the golfer’s bag, SmartClub Tags located at the butt end cap of the grip establishes a direct communication link with the SkyCaddie.”

In addition, the golfer’s “fleet” of golf clubs can be tracked via GPS. SmartClub alerts the golfer if a wedge or other club is left behind before the player advances to the next hole. It also uses the same technology to capture the club used, the geo-location and distances of each shot, while eliminating most of the effort and distraction of manual entry. Captured round data and personal performance data are synced online for post-game analytics or sharing with friends, teachers and fitters.

While our GPS vehicle tracking units can be installed on golf carts, one fleet manager told us, “What we really need is a GPS fleet tracking system for lost golf balls.”

We can’t help there, but we can provide a GPS tracking system that will:

• Help your drivers spend less time in traffic or finding routes.
• Improve on-time performance and route optimization.
• Make it much easier for drivers to locate new stops.
• Streamline the delivery process.
• Reduce travel distance, which can result in substantial annual fuel savings.

Swing by our website to learn how GPS fleet tracking will keep your company out of the rough.

Interesting to see how citizens react when public dollars are involved in obtaining GPS fleet tracking devices for police and other municipal vehicles. In Pekin, Illinois, the Tazewell County Sheriff’s Merit Commission last year recommended tracking units for all sheriff’s squad cars. The commission found merit in a deputy’s request to equip the cars with the technology—ironic since he was being tailed by a GPS tracking system for allegedly being lax on the job.

Anyway, when word got out, the sheriff was contacted by many GPS vehicle tracking providers, all seeking to have their products placed in the squad cars. So many inquired that the county considered putting the job out for bids.

While the sheriff seems enlightened about the many features of GPS fleet tracking, citizens who read about the recommendation online had differing opinions. Some seem to have GPS vehicle tracking products confused with GPS navigation devices. Others call them “spying devices.” Most seem concerned about the price.

Hopefully, the sheriff will educate everyone about the obvious benefits of installing GPS vehicle tracking devices, ranging from pinpointing drivers’ locations in real time to improved fuel efficiency to assisting with stolen-vehicle recovery. If they need more education, we have just the place for them. And as for the deputy who didn’t lose his job after all, we think he’s become a true convert to the power of GPS fleet tracking.

Transit officials are working to make Boston the latest city to make life easier for bus riders with an assist from GPS fleet tracking. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and the state’s Executive Office of Transportation plan to post real-time data about MBTA online. All a rider needs is a smartphone or web-connected PC to find a given route’s closest bus and its estimated arrival time.

Similar systems with GPS vehicle tracking capabilities are already in place in Chicago, Seattle and Pomona, California. In fact, using GPS-based transit trackers can actually help calm riders’ nerves, according to the creators of OneBusAway, a free service in Seattle that delivers bus arrival times by cell phone, website and text messaging.

Developer Kari Watkins, a University of Washington doctoral student in civil and environmental engineering, told Cellular-News.com:

“When people have to wait, they think that twice as much time is passing. So if you’re standing at a bus stop for five minutes, you perceive that time to be 10 minutes. If I know ahead of time, I can grab that cup of coffee and be back out in time to catch my bus. And that kind of information makes taking public transit so much more livable.”

The OneBusAway website displays bus locations by address, route or bus number in real time overlaid on Google maps of Seattle. There’s also a webpage that displays date in an iPhone-like layout.

Joining a growing number of university campuses that have launched a GPS fleet tracking system for shuttles and buses is Cal Poly Pomona. BroncoShuttle.com was developed by a professor at the university east of Los Angeles. According to Metro-Magazine.com:

… the GPS-based system continually updates the location of the university’s six shuttle buses, which cover three routes. It then translates that data into arrival times at the 32 different bus stops on the Southern California campus.

Echoing the calming effect cited by the Seattle developer, a Cal Poly official said:

“In the past, there always was that unknown factor. Where’s the bus? When it is coming? This system is definitely going to enhance the service for our riders.”

Often missing from articles about transit GPS vehicle tracking systems are examples of how drivers benefit once they’re in place. Having informed riders undoubtedly reduces distractions, allowing drivers to focus more attention on the road.

Need some reasons to consider GPS fleet tracking in real time for your vehicles? Here’s a bunch.

GPS fleet tracking is used daily by police, fire and other emergency personnel all over the world. While some employees and their unions might grumble at first, claiming that a GPS fleet tracking system invades their privacy, the reality is that their resistance fades away after the system’s benefits are explained to them.

The latest resistance comes from city employees in Winnipeg, Canada. The municipal vehicles there are being outfitted with GPS tracking devices in a bid to increase response times and send the closest vehicle to a given assignment. But the employees’ union, as expected, claims that the city will use GPS to monitor workers’ movements and—shudder—invade their privacy.

This argument has been refuted time and again. The most obvious benefit of deploying a GPS vehicle tracking system is the ability to know the exact location of each car, van or truck in the fleet in real time. This helps dispatchers send the closest driver to any incident, thus saving time and fuel. Over time, these savings can significantly affect any government or private entity’s bottom line in a positive way.

We continue to marvel at the new ways first responders are using GPS fleet tracking to catch bad buys, manage traffic incidents and improve accountability. Here are some recent examples:

• In Fairfax County, Virginia, police employ a fleet of GPS-equipped “bait cars” at strategic locations throughout the county to ensnare car thieves. The bait vehicles also contain a hidden video camera, plus technology that allows them to be shut down, locked or made to blow their horn loudly at the touch of a remote computer key. A reporter who took a ride in one of the bait cars searched it extensively and could not find the hidden camera.
• England’s Highway Agency uses a GPS fleet tracking system to pinpoint the exact location of all traffic officer patrols to help get them to the scene of an incident quickly. GPS is also used to keep tabs on the agency’s fleet of winter vehicles during severe weather.
• The city of Duluth, Minnesota, installed a GPS fleet tracking system on municipal vehicles. Said the mayor, “The system, called field force management, streamlines job dispatching and reporting while reducing excess fuel use and vehicle wear from indirect routes, speeding, excess idling or unauthorized after-hours use. This system greatly improves accountability.”

We’d like to remind the Winnipeg employee’s union that workers shouldn’t have anything to worry about from GPS fleet tracking–if they don’t have anything to hide. Such a system could even reward them for being on time more often, cutting engine idle time and improving customer satisfaction. At least, the customers who pay their salaries through taxes.

So remember, the next time you hear a siren and see a police or emergency vehicle whiz by, it very well might have been dispatched through a GPS tracking system. It might even be the same type of system you can easily afford to install throughout your fleet.