GPS Tracking ROI

Now I’m not against using technology to find Fido. A dog tracking GPS has at _least_ as much value to mankind as does, say, an iPod. However, there’s a lot of lessons we can learn from examining this system, should we choose to.

First of all the system is a full-fledged GPS tracking system with a two-way link over the cellular phone network between the dog and a map-displaying web site. It also sends messages to the owner’s phone or wireless PDA, because the designer of the system was smart enough to consider the fact that the dogs owner might find it hard to be out tracking down her pup and also viewing a web site. Good score for design there.

In general the US is far behind the rest of the world in effectively using wireless data on cell phones. As a related example to this article, if you had a cell phone in the Philippines and you wanted, say. your car tracked and the location sent to your phone frequently, you’d find that as a regular, tariffed service of the cell carrier.

Anyway, next point on Mr. Dog Track: Because this is a cellular service it is sure not going to work everywhere. An interesting map here from the service provider:
https://www.globalpetfinder.com/coverage.html
This map very much resembles the Cingular digital wireless coverage are of the US, and I can assure you it is optimistic. That’s OK though, most of us who live in the wide open spaces are used to the left and right coast high density population folks considering us as ‘flyover country” and not worthy of service.

Third point is expense. The price of these units reflects a _very_ good mark up by the dealer, at least 10 times above what the original equipment manufacturer charges. But that’s OK, I mark the stuff I sell up also, if the service provider doesn’t make a living then the product dies, and of what use would a low price be then?

But a point that is hard to gloss over is the monthly charges, see:
https://www.globalpetfinder.com/store/purchaseplan.aspx
if this service is operating over the Cingular network, the device could broadcast every few minutes for under 1 dollar a day. If it broadcast only occasionally when the pooch got out then the monthly cost would be only a couple dollars. This company wants people to sign up for plans close to $20 and yet only have 3 or 4 location messages included in that? Wow. Caveat emptor.

My last point is the sad, sad state of government regulation and the raping of America by the insurance industry. Notice that in the company’s FAQ regarding the system they emphatically say ‘no’ to the question can this device be used to track children (which arguably are more precious to some people than their dog ;-).

However, there’s certainly to technical or health reason it could not be used on a child, therefore the only reason the pet tracking company seems so adamantly opposed to using the device to track wandering children has to be liability issues.

Sad that something so potentially useful and quite commercially viable can’t be used to its best and highest potential benefit.

I wrote about this same issue just a few days ago. it would seem this particular theme is going to become ever more frequent in 2006.

If you didn’t chose to read the complete article, here’s the gist of it: A police officer becomes enamored of a young lady. She isn’t interested. Undeterred our ‘anti-hero’ attaches a GPS tracking device to her car and uses it to keep track of where and when the young lady has visited various places.

This use of the GPS tracker, along with a number of other proven stalking activities causes the district attorney to arrest the police officer 0n the charge of “stalking’. The police chief then fires the officer, guilty until proven innocent, don’t you see.

Now, I’m not advocating one person clandestinely stalking another person, ever. I’m particularly against law enforcement officers using their uniforms and power (even unofficially) to stalk. And as most of my column readers know, I sell GPS units but I am 100% opposed to their use for illegal purposes.

But there’s a lot of confusion and arm-waving in this article that shows why the issues are not likely to be settled any time soon.

The news reporter makes in issue over the fact that GPS tracking units are readily available over the Internet, taking the tone as if the tracking units were kiddie porn or bomb building instructions. I fail to see the fact that GPS is available on the ‘Net as something bad, or that they should be controlled. This is standard uniformed media pot stirring.

What I do see as a problem, however, is that guidance for the proper use of these units is not readily available. And not likely to be any time soon. As the example in the article, was the officer entitled to secretly ‘tag’ and track the woman’s car? Almost certainly he wasn’t, but would he be actually illegal in all 50 states, and would the laws in the various states even come close to matching up?

What if the same officer owned the car but a third-party was using it? Would he have the right to track his property (the car) even though he was then also tracking the woman’s movements?

Now suppose the officer owned the car and the woman was his daughter? Or his spouse? Would he have more or less rights to track a relative than a stranger? Relative by blood or relative by marriage?

Can you see the slope we are heading down here? If I was a freshly minted lawyer, or one who felt his usual business was going to slow, I’d leap right out there and hang out a shingle as a GPS Attorney. It’s going to be along, profitable (to the legal community) fight before even the most basic issues on use of GPS vehicle tracking is settled and comprehensible to the common customer.

(PS if there are any entrepreneurial lawyers reading this I am available for technical guidance and expert witness engagements )

Well I thought this was interesting because of several factors.

The first of course was that the ambulance company recovered a very valuable asset quickly, and with no damage. Without some sort of tracking system they might have never recovered it. With a ‘theft only’ system such as LoJack the recovery would have depended upon a police car with the special LoJack receiver on board and a cop would have had to have time to follow the signal until he came upon the ambulance.

When you invest in a real system where you own the information you are paying for, you can do so much more. In fact, if theft poses real problem the system can be designed with a dispatch controlled shut down switch to allow management to literally stop it in it’s tracks in need be.

The second issue is idling. yes, it’s an excuse that the “bus” be left idling in cold weather or hot weather to run the climate control. But does it have to be left idling with the doors open … waiting for joy-riding teens, escaped bank robbers or who knows who else to ‘borrow’ it? The driver could carry a spare key and lock the door you know, it doesn’t take that much fore-thought. Better yet, by a long chalk would be an APU - (Axillary Power Unit) like the ones currently being rolled out on long-haul trucks to avoid idling all night in truck stops.

The ambulance business has long been a “savings lives costs money, how long would you care to live: kind of operation, but in the days of 2 to 3 dollar gas and massive pollution problems the company could do worse than to plan for the future. Idling is a hidden waste that costs American business millions of gallons of fuel per year and nearly all of it is completely unnecessary. It goes on mainly for one reason … business owners don’t know how much idling their fleets do and they don’t have the data to determine which drivers are at fault, so the whole problem gets swept under the rug.

A good GPS system can save in many ways that most of us don’t think of when we first consider tracking.

As your blogging guru .. or punching bag … I feel it’s my duty to go out on a limb at time, after all, Will Rogers said that is where the fruit is.

Well, here I go … GPS tracking and dispatch systems don’t work.

Hmm, “Mr. GPS” claims the technology doesn’t work? Well, not exactly. The underlying infrastructure, the GPS system works great. Most of the hardware (GPS receivers and fleet tracking systems) sold to interface with the underlying system work well too,

But people? ” Ah”, said Willie, “There’s the rub.” here we have what ought to be a logical and beneficial system proposal. If all the taxis are tracked and dispatched via a system based on their GPS location then lots of benefits should accrue. Safety, efficiency, satisfied customers, driver costs per passenger reduced, the list can easily go on. Yet, as the guy interviewed in the story predicts, I think this system is going to fall on it;s face. Since it is partly a government boondoggle it may eventually struggle along, at the cost of much more tax payer money than was originally envisioned, but it will not be pretty for some time to come.

So, what is Bermuda doing wrong? Here’s my view (this advice is worth about $10,000 USD ($1,000,000 if you hire one of the big three Beltway Bandits instead of me), but I’ll give it away in the aftermath of the holiday season.

First: Mandating the use of a system is stupid, and it’s wrong in both a political and a business sense. If a proposed system can not be shown to provide increased profit then government has no right to force it upon individual citizens and corporations. It’s push versus pull. If the system has any merit drivers should be lining up to get it.

Second: The human factor of how a driver gets dispatched, how competing companies share available business, the basic facts of how much business there is, how much each dispatch call is worth, and other basic business metrics are separate and unique from any GPS questions. It seems obvious from the article I sourced that the drivers, the taxi companies and the government have no idea. therefore, it’s impossible to tell how much a GPS system will affect the companies’ and the driver’s bottom lines.

Third: Sharing or “co-opetition“. is always a challenge, but it could be made to work. The problem to face up to though has nothing to do with GPS. If you plan to consolidate dispatch centers you first need to get the numbers mentioned in my second point (above). Each passenger has a cost. Each passenger has a profit potential. The process of taking a dispatch request from a passenger, finding him or her a cab and making sure the driver gets the passenger to a destination, collects the fare and follows the law is a legitimate cost of doing business. It’s not free, no matter who is doing the dispatching and control function. If a business knows the cost of those functions they can easily make a determination of costs and benefits involved in outsourcing the function or keeping it in house. Sadly, most companies can’t give you that information today, GPS-dispatched or non-GPS dispatched. If they don’t know those costs they can’t make a sound decision .. seems I’ve said this before … You can’t manage what you can’t Measure.

So, Bermuda or you in your own business, learn your costs and how to measure them _before_ you start the process of deciding if a GPS tracking system is or isn’t a good thing for you. GPS is great, but it’s no panacea. If you don’t have the intimate knowledge of your business you need today, don’t rush off to buy a GPS to solve your problems. Find out you costs and profits first and then you can make a knowledge-based decision.

Yesterday I made some comments on a new law in Nevada that may be expected to spread far and wide, requiring auto manufacturers to put warnings in the car’s owners manual if the vehicle contains tracking devices. It’s easy to make the case that consumer should be made aware if they may come under the supervision of any tracking device.

One wonders how someone can buy a car with OnStar listed in the list of options and receive a monthly fee from OnStar for their subscription and not be aware they have the technology installed, but hey, more power to the Nevada legislators, it’s a law people seemed to want.

But what about people who don’t know they’re paying to be tracked? This might be the case regarding the woman mentioned above who may well owe her life to a GPS unit in her car that many people didn’t seem to know of.

Hey, these things cost money. Who would put one on your car that even the police didn’t know about? Well, the clue is in the credit the police gave to the finance company. Apparently they are a small ‘buy here, pay here’ auto finance firm. For the past several years now there has been a growing subculture in the GPS sales world of small, unobtrusive tracking units that dealers and finance companies mount on used cars. Are they doing this for customer safety and good will? Hardly. They’re doing it because they want to be able to locate the car (on which they hold a lien) if the payments don’t come in on time. In many cases, the GPS tracking systems are wired into the car’s ignition system, so if a buyer’s payments are late, the finance company can push a button and the car shuts down. I think that’s sort of what psychologists term “negative reinforcement”.

So don’t think you aren’t being tracked even if you don’t own a new GM car that came equipped with OnStar. You might be being tracked even if you are making your payments to Honest Joe’s Used Car and Storm Door Company. Now, who is looking out for these people and who is proposing any laws designed to emulate the Nevada owner’s manual warning?

On the other hand of this argument, perhaps we should ask Laverne Daniels if she’s happy that the GPS tracking was installed on her car. The article doesn’t specify if Ms. Daniels was notified of the device’s existence, but because it was there it for sure that her ordeal was substantially less traumatic than these kind of abduction cases normally turn out to be, At the least the woman usually suffers sexual assault and often is murdered. Thank goodness FreeWay Auto Credit was tracking each and every one of the vehicles they sold.

Or, was the whole thing the work of the devil? What sayeth thou?

Cindy Cesare, a reporter for KLASTV in Las Vegas, Nevada, did a pretty good job on this story. It’s written as if KLAS’s viewers have more than a third-grade education, which is unusual. I read dozens of such stories every day and most of them could be written better by the average third-grader, frankly. I set out to write Cindy an email note to make a couple additional points about the story, and as usual, I got long winded (long-keyboarded?), so I decided to make it a blog item. I’m sure other states aren’t going to be far behind with laws of this nature. I can’t argue against the practice, but a few points ought to be brought out:

1. The new law is probably a good thing, although how many people will read it or use it to make an informed decision is debatable. One famous case in Connecticut a few years back had a car rental company was using their own GPS tracking device to record renter’s movements and fining them for speeding or other contract violations stirred up considerable controversy even though the rental contract clearly stated that this practice would be used. I’ve never really read a rental car contract, and I never read an owner’s manual unless I can’t find the jack when I have a flat *smile*, but the state is certainly within it’s right to insure citizens are made aware.

2. There are many other ‘black boxes’ on modern vehicles (computer engine controls, air bag deployment computers, anti-lock brake controllers, etc.) that are designed into the vehicle, provide much more detailed information, and unlike OnStar, are not optional equipment, so those worried about being culpable because of driving habits, speeding etc., are being monitored as we speak, with no choice in the matter.

3. The amount of data that GM’s OnStar system actually stores, either on the vehicle for later reference or at the OnStar control center, which _can_ but may or may not monitor the vehicle’s speed and location at any time, is information GM considers proprietary. Law enforcement agencies attempting to recover stolen vehicles with OnStar’s assistance often report errors in excess of a city block or more. Even an owner can not get this information from GM, although the owner is a paying consumer (OnStar has a monthly charge which pays the bill for the cellular telephone air time the system uses, to track either data or voice communication). From a consumer protection viewpoint, is a disclaimer in the owner’s manual anywhere near sufficient disclosure?

4. Relating directly to the point above, OnStar uses the national cellular network to transmit data from the vehicle to OnStar headquarters. This means it’s value in an emergency (especially in a state like Nevada with many wide open spaces) is questionable. It’s my view that the more important disclaimer GM ought to be required to make is the distinct limitations of the system … the magazine ads and TV commercials make consumers think they are really inside OnStar’s “protective cocoon” anywhere they travel, when they most assuredly are _not_.

5. The cellular carriers are required to be able to locate cellular phone locations to various degrees of precision (presently many carriers nation-wide are failing to meet FCC requirements. This location information is ostensibly to be used to tell emergency services organizations where cellular callers in distress are located, but in point of fact can be used to find the location of _anyone_ with a cell phone, often even when a call is not placed. Any time your cell phone is powered it is in communication with the closest cellular provider and you have no control of this, aside from turning the phone off. There are a number of cell phones now on the market that contain a GPS receiver that pinpoints them more accurately, but the basic (less precise) location technology is FCC mandated for _all_ phones.

It’s hardly the purchasers/subscribers to OnStar who are subject to tracking without disclosure … OnStar is literally only the tip of the iceberg.

(Disclaimer: I’m a professional in this field who sells tracking systems for a living. We sell to many businesses who find it important to know the locations and performance of their vehicles and need access to the information they pay for, which only law enforcement (according the GM party line) can get from OnStar.)