GPS Tracking ROI

I’m not too sure about some people’s feelings, but I personally think the TSA mavens are missing the point completely. While we debate about how big nail clipper scissors may be we let thousands of shipments like this one travel the nations highways unmonitored.

The story above is from Canad, but it’s 100% applicable to the US. It also had a happy ending due to the fact that the trucking company owner had invested in a GPS tracking system.

But, since this shipment did not carry explosives, it would have been perfectly legal for these armored (and able to be armed) military vehicles to travel with no one watching. For years now the TSA has been mulling over the idea of tracking hazardous and potentially hazardous cargo in the US, yet no a single viable effort has been made to do actually _do_ anything about it.

Most of the TSA’s work has consisted of conferences where industry execs moan about the idea being “too hard:”, or meetings with tracking company leasers who spend the time arguing how their technology is the only viable one … and not a damn thing gets done.

In the meantime the TSA spins it’s wheels with re-wickering the rules on what can be hand carried onto airplanes … ignoring unmonitored containers of cargo on the same flights, or even armored missile launchers.

This might be an excellent time to write your representatives and tell them that the Michael Brown style of TSA leadership is now run it’s course. If we don’t monitor armored vehicle shipments then what on earth _should_ we be monitoring? And I’m talking a government-operated GPS master tracking facility that would actually keep tabs on these dangerous devices, not a simple reliance on the good will and public-spirited efforts of individual truck owners. Anyone else out there concerned?

Hope I don’t sound like too much of a broken record on this issue, but here again is one of the few school districts in the nation willing to not only extend themselves for pupil and driver safety, but observant enough to realize that measuring what they get paid to manage will return much more than the small initial investment.

Districts owe their drivers proof of activities to winnow out the bad from the good, protect the drivers against false claims and institute systems that allow rewarding drivers for performance rather than politics.

They owe parents the assurance of maximum safety for kids and demonstrable assurance they are managing the district’s transportation money wisely. Lord knows there is often little enough money to manage a district, why waste it?

So, Dave asks, what kind of parent are you? They one who listens to the complaining of school district managers and shrugs their shoulders? or the kind who holds district managers accountable for doing their best with their limited funds? After all, it’s only your child’s future and the next generation’s tax bill at stake, is it worth getting involved?

If you’re a school administrator, operations manager, fleet manager and you’re reading this … did you note that grant funds are available for these kind of initiatives? Are you like the 905% I talk to who almost revel in the ‘We have no funds” standard answer, or are you on the leading edge in wanting to maximize what you have? Only you can decide.