GPS Tracking ROI

Heartwarming Tale: Boy Gets Lifesaving Transplant

GPS technology brought together a sick Pennsylvania boy with a new donor heart in the nick of time, reported WTAE-TV Pittsburgh and the Associated Press. Ten-year-old John Paul May of Harrisville needed to be located within a narrow four-hour window, but despite searching his mother’s usual haunts — such as the local mall and grocery store — hospital officials and police couldn’t find the family. His mother had a cell phone, but the volume was off.

With time running out, the boy’s cardiologists enlisted police to track down May’s mother through her cell phone. State police contacted Sprint Nextel Corp. to get the coordinates of his mother’s phone, and located them at a university jazz concert. Police officers rushed in, interrupted the performance, and told the entire audience that a new heart was waiting for John Paul.

The 500-strong crowd gave the boy a standing ovation as he left for the Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh.

GPS tracking on personal phones can only be used in life-or-death situations or to track someone wanted in a homicide, according to state police. Otherwise, police must get a warrant from a judge.

At last report, the young John Paul was doing well with his newly found heart. 

Courtesy GPS World magazine … if you are reading this site you must have an interest in GPS.  If you aren’t reading GPS World, you are missing a LOT.  I’ve been a subscriber for years, it’s well worth it.

Haven’t written on GPS Privacy for some time now.  There’s a few previous articles here .. (see the “Categories” section or use the handy search box, top right).  Saw this today and couldn’t resist passing it on.  Even the most ardent privacy advocate has got to read this and think a bit.  How great was the invasion of privacy of John Paul’s mom (one wonders why she was so enthused about personal privacy that she would risk her son’s life, but hey, that’s a story for another day)versus the outcome which resulted in a young boy being given a chance to live?

If you’re adamantly opposed still, that’s fine with me.  But the train can’t be sopped and it’s up to all of us with opinions, for and against, to shape the schedule and route the train is going to take.  Think it through for yourself, and then work with your elected officials, local, state and federal, to make the laws read the way you think they ought to.  Come to think of it … how many elected officials even have an opinion on the tracking (GPS and other technologies) privacy issue?  Does yours?

Recently I posted about Federal Hours Of Service (HOS) rules and the article mentioned log books (Records Of Duty Status … RODS) and other common long-haul trucking terms. In spite of the fact that the federal regulations apply to ALL drivers of commercial vehicles … which basically means any driver who gets paid to carry “goods” in a vehicle under his/her control, a great many business owners think the regulations don’t apply to them. In particular this viewpoint is reinforced by the change in the most recent regulations which eliminates log books for “short haul” drivers.

But do not be fooled by thinking the law doesn’t apply to your drivers and vehicles because they drive vehicles don’t require Commercial Driver’s Licenses (CDL) and no longer need to maintain a log book like the “big boys” do. In many ways the “relaxation” of rules to eliminate the log book makes your role as business owner even more complicated. Here is a synopsis direct from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety site:

Drivers of property-carrying CMVs which do not require a Commercial Driver’s License for operation and who operate within a 150 air-mile radius of their normal work reporting location:

• May drive a maximum of 11 hours after coming on duty following 10 or more consecutive hours off duty.
• Are not required to keep records-of-duty status (RODS).
• May not drive after the 14th hour after coming on duty 5 days a week or after the 16th hour after coming on duty 2 days a week.

Employer must:

• Maintain and retain accurate time records for a period of 6 months showing the time the duty period began, ended, and total hours on duty each day in place of RODS. (emphasis added)

Drivers who use the above-described short-haul provision are not eligible to use 100 air-mile provision 395.1(e) or the current 16-hour exception in 395.1(o).

Drivers of property-carrying CMVs which do not require a Commercial Driver’s License for operation and who operate within a 100 air-mile radius of their normal work reporting location:

• The driver, except a driver-salesperson, returns to the work reporting location and is released from work within 12 consecutive hours.
• A property-carrying commercial motor vehicle driver has at least 10 consecutive hours off duty separating each 12 hours on duty.
• A property-carrying commercial motor vehicle driver does not exceed 11 hours maximum driving time following 10 consecutive hours off duty.
• Actually, there are a lot more provisions and “except for’s’ in here … different rules for driver salespersons, for example and completely different rules for “Passenger Carrying” vehicles … shuttle busses, School Busses, airport vans, taxi cabs …. you get the drift…)

Here’s the main point of this post and the one’s I’m going to follow this up with:

The motor carrier that employs the driver maintains and retains for a period of 6 months accurate and true time records showing:(my emphasis added)

• The time the driver reports for duty each day.
• The total number of hours the driver is on duty each day.
• The time the driver is released from duty each day.
• The total time for the preceding 7 days in accordance with §395.8(j)(2) for drivers used for the first time or intermittently.

So my question to you today, Mr. or Mr. Business owner is … do you have these records? Are they in a status that would allow you to take them with you to court and use them to prove your compliance? Would you be able to show them to a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Inspector who showed up at your door?

Tune in tomorrow and I’ll show you how you can have these records on your desktop, on your company server, for as long as you wish to keep them … and even get paid (achieve an ROI) to keep them. A good deal if I can deliver, yes?

Transportation attorney Clay Porter told attendees of CCJ’s Spring Symposium in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Wednesday, June 6. “Trucking companies should stop hauling freight and spend more time fighting lawsuits – you’d be a lot more profitable.” …. Read the full eTrucker article on trucking legal risks here.

I’ve extracted and made a few comments on some of Attorney Porter’s points. They make good reading if you have vehicles on the road … company owned, employee owned, common carrier or not for hire … you still face some tremendous liabilities as soon as an employee turns a wheel in aid of your business.

These are some of the more common tactics Porter has seen used recently by plaintiff’s attorneys trying to win large damage claims against companies with vehicles involved in accidence.

“Log speeding.” Bad logs can result in incorrect times, where strict mathematical calculations of miles traveled during a particular period might result in an incorrect conclusion of overly excessive speed…

You’ve seen me mention time and time again how prevalent inaccurate or “swindle sheet” Hours Of Service (HOS) logs are used in the trucking business. One consequence that will show up for sure is if the driver shows departure from a point at a certain hour but then has a second log that shows he departed much later in order to “buy” some extra driving hours. If the log at the time of the accident shows the truck had to average say, 100 mph (and yes, this is common) then how is the company’s lawyer going to convince a jury that the driver was driving safely? With million-dollar judgements common a $500 GPS logging the truck’s true hours and speed would look like a pretty good investment “after the fact”.

Carriers “permit” violations of the hours-of-service regulations if they fail to have management systems in place that effectively prevent such violations. “There is an actual accounting cost to some of these safety issues,” Porter said. “The alternative is to start moving away from these problems.” …

Again, I’ve commented on this issue often. I’ve been working with GPS for years, sold systems for years, and have yet to see a trucking company who didn’t have a problem in this area. You don’t even need a tragic accident to throw yourself into the Federal sop pot with this issue. If a driver cheats and gets caught s/he gets fined and possibly loses his or her Commercial Driver’s Licence *CDL), but the employee gets nailed too … there are a lot of Federal and Sate laws with verbiage that goes something like “…management shall not suffer or permit such practices … “. In today’s world you have to be responsible for things you can’t monitor properly unless you measure remotely. Don’t think you are wasting your time reading this if you aren’t operating over the road trucks, either. The rules for commercial vehicles which stay close to home can be extremely complex … even if your driver’s don’t have to carry a log book … and if I can find these rules you better believe the lawyer who is out to sure you is going to be able to find them too.

Speed management. Companies should have systems in place to control speeding…

This is a real no-brainier. Speed kills, so reducing speeds will save lives and other, less serious accidents. Also, speed costs significant money in excess fuel costs, tire wear and other vehicle maintenance issues. Even if there were no Hours Of Service rules and you never had to worry about getting sued a proper GPS tracking system will pay for itself in speed-related savings alone. I have never yet seen a fleet that did not show measurable decreases in fleet-wide average speeds after installing GPS tracking. And you all know by now what my old friend Dr. Drucker used to say:

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure”.

It’s Sunday again, dear readers … well at least it is again on my side of the globe.  This will post on Sunday, UTC (Greenwich or Military or Zulu time if you prefer).  I always try to provide something visual for Sundays and this Sunday … wow I have hit the jackpot.  Batter than Katie Couric’s legs or Angelina’s tattoos.

If you are not yet a Google Maps user you should be.  You may have noticed a new button on the standard www.maps.google.com  interface:

Click that button and if you located near New York, Denver, San Francisco (or a few other cities being added) you will then see the standard Google Map interface with some squiggly blue lines, thus:

The blue lines indicate the areas where Google’s new “Immersive Mapping” has been done.  I’ll post more on this subject as the technology is really fascinating, but for now, see if you can recognize the resulting view I got here from the little camera icon location on the map above:

Recognize it?  You should, it’s the ramp up from the Lincoln Tunnel in Weehauken, the same one you have watched Tony drive up for 6.5 years of Sopranos episodes (R.I.P., Sopranos). (Us older, “real” Jerseyites know it’s Route 3 and not Route 495, but Shrub thinks he can rename everything just by throwing a few federal funds around)

A fantastic tool and really fun too use … enjoy.

OK, pretty complicated graphic there, eh? (oops, that’s Canadian, not Aussie

As a US citizen I’m always happy to brag on my county’s contributions to the world, especially the free utility we offer up to the world, the US DoD developed, funded and operated GPS. I don’t style myself as Mr. GPS for no reason … I’ve been with the program since the earliest days and it continues to amaze and fascinate me.

But one thing that doesn’t fascinate me is how little my own countrymen make use of the system at the “common folk” level. The US is handicapped by a lot of companies, educational institutions and government agencies that try to make the use of GPS too darn complicated. People think you need to own a huge business or be a PhD. or have special qualifications to make good use of GPS … and it just isn’t so.

Here’s a great site from Australia maintained by a fellow who has written the “real people” book on making everyday use of GPS in Australia. Pretty impressive accomplishment, I’d say … as soon as his next edition hits print I intend to buy a copy, even though I don’t live in Australia.

One of the best pages on this site is a set of resources for NetGPS a small, freeware programme you can use to see where people are in real-time, as they travel around.

Go take a look and explore. No GPS required. Recommended.

Trucking execs - Helping drivers improve safety is key to retention
By Kristin Walters

Kevin Burch, left, president and CEO of Jet Express, and Jeff Davis, vice president of safety for the Dayton, Ohio-based carrier, discussed best practices for driver retention at the CCJ Spring Symposium.

The cure for the driver shortage is emphasizing safety and turning “churners” into reliable, loyal drivers, industry representatives Jeff Davis and Kevin Burch told attendees Wednesday, June 6, at the CCJ Spring Symposium in Tuscaloosa, Ala… Read full Helping Drivers article.

Looking at the calendar on the wall I see that I posted about another “so near but yet so far” GPS-related idea just a few Fridays ago … maybe I should make that a regular feature, there is certainly more than enough material for a weekly article at the least.

CCJ (Commercial Carrier Journal) is among the largest and oldest publication that serve the North American trucking industry. In some ways they are very innovative, such as their regular symposia that bring together the best and the brightest in the industry to share ideas. In other ways, though, they seem mired in the times of the past. Read the full article and tell me if anyone … Kristin, the reporter, or anyone else commented on the fact of how downright dumb sub-optimal managing driver’s safety performance is by means of monitoring the traffic citations they receive.

Mr. Burch and Mr. Davis, referenced above, have some very good ideas for solving the driver shortage for their company and making the roads safer at the same time. But, sadly, they sing the same refrain I have heard a thousand times before from others in the trucking industry who rely upon law enforcement citations to measure the performance of their drivers.

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears” … once a driver has received a traffic citation your safety program has already dropped the ball. And a driver going a week, a month, a year without a violation doesn’t tell you a thing about his or her safety performance … it only measures the fact that no law enforcement officer observed an unsafe act at the time the officer was able to execute a traffic stop and write up the violation.

This is “head in the sand” management if ever there was such a thing. Not long ago I met with the Director of Transportation in a large county who certainly had problems. I wanted to show him the benefits of managing his fleet and his drivers by using a simple, zero-monthly-cost GPS system that would show him the mileage, the speeds (with speeding flagged for management attention) as well as his labor hours, time and attendance and federal Hours Of Service (HOS) data to insure compliance. His response? “Oh we can’t afford it.” At the same time this country executive pays a monitoring service more than $500 a month to monitor each driver on the county payroll for traffic offence convictions. Am I the only one who thinks this is backwards, upside down and inside out? Am I the only one who has committed “sins” while driving that I didn’t get a ticket for?

Managers, wake the heck up and manage! You must measure in order to manage, like Jet Express does with the excellent idea, but to make it work most efficiently and earn the best Rate Of Return (ROI) on your investment, you must measure the right things. Instead of measuring violations, why not think of managing with the goal of zero violations … the means are well within your grasp.

(if you’d like to know more feel free to contact me directly at: davestarr (at) gmail (dot) com or call 1-1719-423-8872)

This is becoming a more ludicrous soap opera every day.  It is hard to believe the number of people in technologically equal (in cases even superior) countries and hard-nosed, highly profit-oriented lands that can not see the forest for the trees.

Originally France (I suspect highly motivated by its huge, wasteful and “old AT&T-like” telecommunications giant Alcatel) supported a totally superfluous and extremely wasteful carbon-copy of the US built, implemented and funded GPS.  The main reason anyone could really articulate was for the Glory of France, so far as I can see.  Because even a French “beltway bandit” like Alactel knew the EU countries would balk at the stupendous and un-needed tax burden of a government-funded effort, they cooked up a completely ignorant and un-workable scheme that would have the contractors building out the system on their own money, to be recovered by “profits” from charges made to use an otherwise totally free world-wide utility.

Last months someone within the consortium of contracts finally put down the mouthpiece of the hookah they were smoking (they had to be on some kind of drugs to think they could make this work) and figured out that there were no profits waiting in the future and stopped pissing way their shareholder’s money on this nonsense.

Now, if you believe Time’s sources, a significant portion of the citizenry of the European Union is in favor of going ahead with this boondoggle using government (that means individual taxpayer’s) funds.  Amazing.

There is no lack of invention necessary in this world. Even in the narrower spectrum of space and electronics.  If France and the rest of the EU want to spend money to make themselves look good they could do something about Greenhouse Gasses, cancer, childhood mortality, or (Princess Diana certainly wishes they had done this) a method to inhibit drunks from driving. 

Why not enjoy the GPS for what it is and enhance technology for the future instead of slavishly copying what is already an old design and enslaving their grandchildren with government debt just to be able to fly the French (oops) EU banner on it?