Route Planning Enhancement Predicts Traffic Flow
I’ve long been a proponent of capturing data from GPS vehicles going about their daily business to determine traffic density and speed flows on roads. Real-world data rather than “pulled out of a hat” predictions.
Now there’s a company, LandSonar who is taking advantage of this data resource, along with other resources to give real-world traffic flow and delay information on the entire North American road network.
When you use a comprehensive routing and dispatch system to route your delivery vehicles, you are on the road (pun intended) to saving a small fortune in fuel and labor hours. You are also on track to build a tremendous amount of good will with your customers. No more of the “the delivery will be there between 8 am and 11 am nonsense. There are a number of great systems like this out there (disclaimer, I sell or consult on several of them).
GPS Learning Resources
Frome time to time I attempt to write some words on GPS basics and the simplified theory behind the technology. I seldom satisfy even myself with the meager efforts.
Learning more can only help you be abetter consumer. And learning is fun too, I’ve found (my high school teachers will turn over in their graves hearing that, but as the old saying goes, too soon old, too late smart ;-))
Here’s an excellent overview article I came across today that is well worth a look.
And here’s a great resource site I have been exploring … there is a wealth of information here.
This just points up the fact that the spirit behind the original World Wide Web is far from dead.
Best Handheld GPS Devices
Whether you’re hiking, walking in the city or out for just a stroll in the wilderness, you’ll never get lost if you bring along a handheld GPS unit. GPS or global positioning system devices use satellite signals to determine your exact position anywhere on earth. So the Good Housekeeping Institute looked at the latest “low-cost” units for hikers and campers.
“One of the most useful features of these handheld GPS units is that they allow you to mark a location and then travel anywhere around that point and easily find your way back,” says Jeremiah Driansky, Test Engineer, Good Housekeeping Institute. Full Article here:
Now maybe this doesn’t sound all that interesting to the geeks (like me) who read this blog, but if you stop and think for a moment this is some really incontrovertible proof that GPS and especially GPS tracking an mapping has made it into the mainstream.
All aboard as York’s hi-tech GPS tracked bus fleet gets ready for the road
Three plus dollar a gallon fuel. A president who thinks that throwing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve into the poker game as his last ditch effort is somehow “leadership”. Senators who think that “leadership” is throwing a hundred dollar bill at each American and telling them to shut up…
It may come as a shock, folks, but the only real solution to our current fuel crisis is to use less. The only practical way to use less in an urban environment is mass transit. Here’s an interesting article from York, England. It’s easy for Americans to sit on our fat asses in our 9 mpg SUV’s and ask, “What can England teach us technologically”? The answer is, a lot.
Buses. To middle-aged motorists the very name conjures memories of freezing waits in vandalised shelters, litter, stale cigarette smoke, and being ticked off for not having the right change. Which is one of the reasons the b-word will not even feature in Monday’s roll out of York’s pioneering £4m new travel service - a bus designed to look like a tram which can be tracked by satellite and given green lights if in danger of running late. Full article here:
The particular “hook” for me on this venture is the significantly smarter use of GPS tracking. It’s “old hat” just to track the busses so that the dispatcher knows where they are. Read more
GPS Tracking at the Home of Golf
Lest you think I never read or write anything but gloom and doom — cheating employees, global ocean flooding or domestic abusers — here’s a nice article from the Home of Golf, St. Andrews in my ancestral home, Scotland.
St. Andrews Praises INFOREMER(TM) Management System From GPS Industries
Scottish Links Touts the Benefits of GPS System
VANCOUVER, BC — (MARKET WIRE) — 05/03/2006 — GPS Industries Inc. (GPSI) (OTC BB: GPSN), the leading innovator of Wi-Fi enabled GPS communications for golf facilities and residential communities, completed installation of their INFOREMER™ GPS system in July 2005 at St. Andrews Bay Golf Resort. The Devlin course recently issued the following press release:
A welcome addition to the fleet of golf buggies, the 10.4-inch color graphic screen instructs the golfer of exact distance information, to hazards such as bunkers, water features and to the front, centre and back of the greens.
The distances are measured in both meters and yards and will be the first UK installation to cater to golfers from around the world. The system is also fully integrated with the Internet giving golfers the ability to check sports scores and news from around the world, as well as updates on their own tournament. The stunning par 72 cliff-top course was designed by Australian Bruce Devlin and the legendary Gene Sarazen… Full article here:
There’s a lot of GPS news on the wire about golf in the course of a week. Many of these “on cart” systems are quite expensive compared to the price of commercial road vehicle trackers, but for some reason golf course managers seem better able to calculate their ROI on an investment than a lot of commercial transport and service business leaders. Must be the clear air and the stress relief of playing often. Read more
More Eye Candy — Using Maps to Teach the Future
We’ve spoken before about GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and their relationships to GPS tracking. Many common tools we see in everyday travels around the Net are secretly GIS’s at heart.
Google Maps (and Google Earth) for example are applications that literally would cost millions to replicate. And they are very useful as teaching tools and future planning devices.
Here’s a little Google Maps “front end” that shows how out world will change if global warming causes a rise in sea level. Neat to experiment with, are you sure you want to buy that beachfront house … or that gas-guzzling SUV?
GPS Tracking Alert Prompts Arrest
A Domestic Violence Injunction did not stop a Santa Rosa County man from entering an “exclusionary zone,” but the Global Positioning Satellite system (GPS) device strapped to his leg did.
Last Thursday morning, the Santa Rosa Sheriff’s Office communication center received a GPS alert that Eric William Smith, 38, had entered an “exclusionary” zone placed around the victim’s residence.
A condition of Smith’s April 10 pre-trial agreement release on domestic violence charges was to wear the GPS device, alerting the sheriff’s office of his whereabouts at any given time…. Full article here:
It’s well known, but often ignored, or minimized by the news media that domestic violence takes a huge toll in this country both in monetary costs and human suffering. Typically one partner in a relationship becomes very vindictive and the victimized partner’s only recourse is to seek a legal injunction … typically a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order).
There’s ample evidence in both hospitals and cemeteries that these TRO’s are not worth the paper they are written on when one partner has gone ‘over the edge’. Typically the abuser full-well knows he or she is beyond the law, but if they actually cared that they were overstepping the bounds of law they wouldn’t have gotten into the situation where a TRO would be issued in the first place. This has been frustrating judges and law enforcement personnel for years … the legalities must be followed but all too often the orders have no real effect in protecting the potential victims from further harm. Read more