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One of the more obvious uses for GPS tracking is auto theft prevention. Once a vehicle is reported stolen, authorities can locate it, return it to the owner, and arrest the criminal. But installing GPS tracking devices in company vehicles has another benefit: providing accountability for employees. When company vehicles are equipped with tracking devices, employees are less likely to abuse driving privileges and waste fuel. They’re also more likely to be caught if they do.

Sometimes the two benefits, theft prevention and employee accountability, work together. City vehicles in Chicago were equipped with GPS tracking devices to speed up the delivery of limited resources. The other uses of tracking devices proved to be useful unexpectedly when one of the trucks went missing from the parking lot of a Burger King very early on a Saturday morning.

City Truck Tracked

The truck was manned by a night investigator for the Department of Water Management. Although paid to work eight hours straight, he and some of his crew members had stopped for a late night snack. Thanks to the on-board tracking device, the truck was discovered a couple of hours later on the other side of town, and the employees’ on-the-clock break was recorded for disciplinary action. The GPS tracking technology was also used by the city when it was discovered that employees at the Jardine Water Filtration Point were involved with creating falsified time sheets. Using GPS tracking devices, city managers were able to collect sufficient data to set the records straight, saving taxpayers money and preventing attempted theft.

Although not all situations are as drastic as these examples, irresponsible employees cost any business money. Shoddy work can often be produced for the same amount of pay as the hard working employees earn; throw in misuse of a company car and the costs increase. Outfitting company vehicles with tracking devices can provide a level of accountability for your employees, helping to prevent wasted time, fuel, and most of all, money. Increased accountability often leads to increased efficiency by limiting opportunities to waste time.

GPS tracking can keep your company car safe as well. In the event a vehicle is stolen, it can easily be recovered and the criminal is more likely to be caught. For smart employers looking to increase company efficiency, track important deliveries, and provide employees with a greater degree of accountability, GPS tracking devices are the way to go.

By Greg Bartlett

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Using GPS tracking devices to run businesses more efficiently is not a new concept. These tracking systems have been used successfully for several years in many areas of industry from cutting down on vehicle abuse on company vehicles to insuring that expensive construction equipment doesn’t get stolen from a job site. And now these GPS trackers are being used in farming.

GPS tracking devices come in two forms: real time and passive trackers. Real time trackers might be the more expensive kind of tracking device, but they are extremely convenient and easy to use. Once the tracker is put in place, it sends out regular signals to satellites giving information on the trackers location, direction, and speed. The information that the tracking unit gathers can then be viewed on any computer with internet access. These trackers have to be removed from the item that they are tracking periodically for charging, but the batteries last longer than passive GPS tracking devices. Passive trackers are the less expensive kind of tracking device, but they are not as convenient to use. These trackers record the information instead of sending it to a satellite, which means that the tracking device has to be retrieved before the information can be viewed. Passive devices are also not helpful for protecting items from theft, because they cannot be located like a real time tracker could be.

Farmers in the United Kingdom are now using these GPS tracking devices to keep their crops properly watered. Irrigation and drainage have always been a problem for farmers. If plants are not getting too little water, they seem to be getting too much. Finding the right balance can be difficult, but it is crucial to getting a good crop, so it is very important that the farm’s drainage system is well designed.

Before farmers thought to use GPS trackers to help design their irrigation and drainage systems, they spent days trying to map out the best water system. Now, GPS tracking devices allow them to survey the land more quickly and accurately, so they can design the water system in a matter of hours. Using GPS will also save the farmer money, because the quicker it takes to plan a water system, the less money the system will cost a farmer. Farmers will also be able to use in the extensive amount of information that the GPS tracker can provide to make any future changes or additions to the water system as easily as designing the initial water system.

Thanks to GPS technology, farmers can now have irrigation and drainage systems that fit the exact needs of their farm without the hassle that it formerly took to plan them. They can maximize their crop yield with minimal manual mistakes.

(Editor’s note:  Now if we can just figure out if the use of gps tracking has increased the number of crop circle designs in recent years – or are aliens involved? My bet would be on GPS – no surprise there.  Farmers can get pretty creative with these new agricultural tools!)

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Do you get nervous when your parents venture out on a trip in their car by themselves? It’s a common occurrence for retired parents to pack up and leave for a vacation, but it can be disconcerting for family members that cannot reach them by a land line phone – like usual. Why? Here are some reasons.

Busy Highways

Our nation’s interstate system is full of traffic. Have you been on it lately? Have you seen the speeds at which people are traveling? It is really no place for those who might not be up to the challenge of driving in that kind of stressful conditions? You should be concerned for your parents welfare, just like they did for you when you were younger. Go on a drive with your parents to make sure that their reaction times have not slowed significantly to degrade their ability to take evasive actions if necessary when they are driving.

Dangerous People

There are dangerous people on our roadways these days. Bands of roving thieves are looking for cargo that they can steal from trailers. Sometimes they steal the trailers – rigs and all. Your parents probably could never imagine these types of incidents occurring and they are sharing the roads with all kinds of people (ready to give you a hand signal to show their “feelings”). If Mom and Dad are driving to slowly they could enrage another driver. Heaven forbid that they become entangled in an incident on the roads involving any of these shady characters. Keeping track of them and making them aware of these things is a good safety precaution.

Health Concerns

How are your parents doing physically? Are they up to the hours and hours of sitting behind the wheel of a car, or in the passengers seats? Do they take medication that can reduce their motor skills that are needed to drive on today’s busy streets and roads? Do not overlook this important factor when considering the care of your parents as they travel about.

These are but a few of the concerns. But there is a way that you can help provide a measure of safety and security if you are not able to dissuade them from going: get a GPS Tracking device for their vehicle.

A GPS Tracking unit properly attached will provide you with a method of being able to keep track of your parents. Sure, you can use cell phones, too, but keep in mind that cell phone batteries have a tendency to go dead and with busy schedules on vacation, who knows if they will remember to charge them up in a timely fashion. Will they remember to even have the phone with them during travel? Having a gps tracking device hard wired to their car battery is the best way to track your elderly parents. Don’t rely on faulty cell towers, turned off phones and dead cell batteries.

GPS Tracking is the perfect backup for knowing where your parents are and being able to track their progress on a trip. By monitoring the GPS Tracking device movements on a PC, you can see where they are, which direction they are headed and even the speed that they are going. Just knowing they are ok is worth the price of one of these devices. Keep track of your parents as they travel. They might resent it at first, with all of the stories that are reported in the news these days, you just cannot be too safe. GPS Tracking provides you a way to breathe easier and keep them safe.

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Ask that question to a construction company and you will get a surprising answer. With experts in the industry estimating about $1 billion in losses every year, the amount of money construction companies lose because of theft is astounding. And it seems that no matter how hard these companies try to protect their equipment, bulldozers and backhoes still disappear on a regular basis. Tired of absorbing their losses, construction companies are turning to a new source for their hope of theft protection: anti-theft devices that use GPS tracking.

Traditionally, data devices in construction vehicles have been known as “black boxes.” These boxes can do everything from record fuel consumption to keep track of the machine’s temperature. Now, GPS tracking experts have introduced the idea that black boxes could also include anti-theft devices for the purpose of tracking the location of construction vehicles.

Once a GPS anti-theft device is installed in a construction vehicle, there is little chance that the vehicle will be stolen without recovery. As soon as the company discovers that a bulldozer is missing, they can use the GPS technology held within that bulldozer’s black box to discover the exact location of their property. Satellite and cell tower technology combined will pinpoint the location and direct police to the thieves’ hiding spot. Within a short time, thousands of dollars in construction equipment can be saved. Insurance companies embrace this technology as their payouts are reduced. Think about getting a discount off your insurance policy when you install a gps tracker on your equipment.

The novelty about GPS tracking systems is that they actually are able to communicate with global satellites. And since satellites are able to track all over the world, there is literally no place to hide a vehicle if a tracker is installed in it. Finding the vehicle is a simple matter of tapping into the GPS system and writing down a few coordinates. As more construction companies use gps tracking, it will not be long before stolen construction equipment is a thing of the past.

While it seems like installing an anti-theft device in a backhoe would be a natural conclusion, amazingly, the idea is relatively new to the construction scene. The numbers obviously prove it. $1 billion in losses a year, that’s what the experts say! In addition to tracking only, the geo-fence capabilities would stop your equipment from moving too far from a paramenter. A warning text and phone call would alert you if equipment is being taken out of an area. Work slow downs can be as crippling as an equipment theft. Make full use of the technology and keep your crew working! The cost of installing GPS trackers in these expensive machines is small in comparison. It’s time to bring more and construction firms into the 21st century with GPS technology.

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Now that the term “GPS” is a part of our everyday vocabulary, some of you may not think twice about what it really means. Perhaps for you the term “GPS” is the same as saying navigation. That is okay because if that’s how this particular technology shows up in your life, then you may not need a precise definition. But just in case you want a little bit of background about how it is that you can use a GPS tracker to keep up with vehicles, parcels, and the people using these things, here are some basics:

The letters “GPS” stand for Global Positioning System. The U.S. Department of Defense owns the system and makes it available for people anywhere in the world to use if they want. It has been fully operational since 1995.

The system consists of satellites that are in orbit more than ten thousand miles about the Earth and each one has a computer atomic clock and a radio. These satellites are spaced out so that no matter where you are on the planet, four of them will be stationed above the horizon.

The GPS receivers we use (such as tracking devices, cell phones, etc.) also have computers. The computers in our receivers triangulate to give data on their position after getting bearings from the GPS satellites about the Earth. Receivers can also give you information on speed and direction. This is why some GPS navigation tools are able to reconfigure directions, even when you get off course.

At first this system was used by scientists for research purposes, but now it is available to consumers for everyday use. Rocky Mountain Tracking has a great selection of GPS navigation and tracking tools to choose from. Now that you understand a little about how it all works, you’ll really appreciate the convenience of the Global Positioning System.

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