GPS Tracking ROI

Here, at random (thanks, www.westportnow.com) is just one of the countless, mind-numbing pictures injury/death crashes caused by teen drivers which kill and main our teens at a rate that makes the war in Iraq look like a picnic afternoon.

Many of the searches that land new readers on this site come from the phrase “GPS teen tracking” and many also are the search questions having to do with keeping parents from tracking kids. It seems like a hard question, but it’s not hard for me. As a parent who raised two teen drivers who survived thanks to the grace of God I wish the technology had been available years ago when my boys were teens. I’d like to think they were good drivers and didn’t speed much and went where they said they were going, etc. If they were, then great, both they and I would have had confirmation. If they didn’t, as a dad, I could have stepped in and done something to modify behavior. Today? Absolutely no question I would have it on the car of any child of mine. (more…)

The great Randy Travis had a wonderful hit called “Storms Of Life”.

I’d better change my wandrin ways,
I know I’ve seen my better days,
Always gettin’ high when I get low.
Well, I left my soul out in the rain,
Lord, what a price I’ve had to pay.
The storms of life are washin’ me away.

Do I think the GPS has seen its better days?  Not at all, but I do think GPS (and Glonass, and Galileo) may see a lot of storms over the next 4 years or so.

If you find your Global Positioning System (GPS) device acting weirdly, the problem might be the Sun. Researchers at Cornell University reported Wednesday that an unprecedented solar storm last December had a serious impact on GPS.

.. The findings, presented in Washington, D.C. at the first Space Weather Enterprise Forum, focused on a giant solar flare on December 6, 2006. It created a tremendous radio burst that caused GPS signals to be dropped for a large number of receivers, the researchers said.

Solar flares have been known to disrupt satellite communications and impact electricity grids before, but the researchers said the December event was different. Read More On Solar Flares at NASA.

Now if there’s one thing I hate about all forms of the media, including personal, opinionated blogs like this one, it’s those who run around with a lot of Chicken Little warnings.  S I am not about to issue any.  But I will say this:

• Solar Max, the approximately 11 year cycle of maximum solar disturbances is less than 4 years off
• We know little about the cycle, we know even less about its overall effect on GPS, since GPS was in its infancy during the last Solar Max
• Solar flares pump out huge bursts of energy right in the middle of the band used by GPS and all its current adjuncts/partners/competitors.
• There is no practical work around at this stage of the game.  We can’t increase the output power of the satellites to any degree and we can’t effectively shield existing receivers.

So what’s the word from industry?  I have been searching for a week now to find any rational tech articles that show any real work in progress.  For my pilot colleagues, better be very careful in getting rid of all the “steam gage” navigation on your instrument panel because especially for vertical guidance GPS is liable to suffer significant outages/anomalies over the next 4 or 5 years.  Or not.

Somewhat lounge-in-cheek the headline, but you can’t blame me for coming to such an unfounded but logical conclusion. Russia has been doggedly attempting to complete a system of satellites called Glonass (Global Navigation Satellite System) since the early 1990’s which “competes” with or duplicates the US GPS (Global Positioning System)

Recently, Mr. Bush’s friend Vlad spoke,

President Vladimir V. Putin, who speaks often about Glonass and its possibilities, has prodded his scientists to make the product consumer friendly.

“The network must be impeccable, better than G.P.S., and cheaper if we want clients to choose Glonass,” Mr. Putin said last month at a Russian government meeting on the system, according to the Interfax news agency.

“You know how much I care about Glonass,” Mr. Putin told his ministers.

Now it’s a presidents job to give rah rah talks to the “troops”, but when he told his system developers to make the Glonass “cheaper” than the GPS he lost me. Since the US never charges anyone in the world a nickel to use the GPS, the only way this country boy can see to make a cost of zero any cheaper than zero is to pay someone to use it. Boggles the mind. (more…)

GPS-tracked mileage taxes, private toll roads, and other dumb gimmicks

Russell Sadler

Despite a building backlash against toll roads and highway taxation-by-the-mile schemes, these gimmicks seem to have a mind of their own, grinding ahead despite public opposition that will eventually sink them.

In Oregon, a “pilot project” is underway to tax vehicles by the mile. Public employee vehicles and some private drivers are installing GPS systems to track when and where they drive. The data are collected when the driver fills the tank at selected gasoline stations and taxes assessed.

We are assured this data will remain secret and used for no purpose other than determining how much highway tax to pay. But after six years of the Bush administration, such promises are no longer credible. The only way to protect that kind of intrusive information is not to collect it in the first place… read all of Russell’s column here:

Talk about a made-to-order subject this morning … Google News (I have it set to search for articles on GPS, works great) came up with this column with some well thought out comments about the pilot program in Oregon which proposes to use GPS tracking in vehicles to tax drivers for road usage … possibly replacing gasoline taxes … but that part is still iffy.

I’ve written about these initiatives several times before, I have a whole blog category devoted to these PAYD (Pay As You Drive) initiatives. In general the idea of replacing fixed-rate per gallon taxes with more flexible alternatives has certain real pluses: (more…)

Saw an absolutely fantastic blog post today on another “technogeek” sort of blog … Posted by Pamela Fox, of the Google Maps API Team you can see it here:

It looks like this ….

So, what’s so special? Looks like Pamela mapped her fav restaurants to Google Maps … (more…)

Here’s an item again from my frequent search queries. One of the most popular Google searches that lands here at the “ROI Place” is one form or another of the question “Cant we make tracking others illegal”? or at the very least “defeat GPS” at will?

I’m sure many of the folks who do come here under that banner leave in a huff when they get the impression that I am pretty much a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of the technology. But I’m not a rabid supporter and I have written a number of articles that counsel against thinking that GPS Tracking is the one-size-fits-all solution to every problem. Even my friends at the Phoenix Insurgent sometimes agree with me. You might want to review some of my articles in the GPS Help or Hurt or GPS and PAYD categories.

But even though GPS Tracking is not always the best solution to every problem, should it be made illegal? Here are some pros and cons as I see them: (more…)