GPS Tracking ROI

It’s the beginning of September already!  Wherever does the time go?  I have been doing some cleanup here on the GPS ROI Tracking site and I notice it has been a while since I gave a shoutout to the faithful sponsors who are responsible for keeping this place running … as well as providing some great services for my readers.

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GPS Insight gives your company’s management the ability to report on:

• Activity Detail
• Fuel Consumption
• Speed Violations
• Vehicle Performance(Trouble Codes)
• Landmark Activity
• Odd Hours
• Geofence Violation
• Many others…

GPS Insight uses satellites and AT&T/T-Mobile to provide you with highly accurate vehicle locations every 2 minutes throughout the US and Canada. Verify your exact coverage with the AT&T Coverage Tool.  This company is run by a man I have never had the pleasure of meeting yet, but am proud to consider a friend … Rob Donat.  There are many companies out there offering services similar to GPS Insight.  I have yet to find any that equal or exceed Rob’s offerings, though.  Rob’s been an advertiser, advisor and sounding board to us here for some time now, and I recommend him.

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Geotab is not a current advertiser … I hope to correct that little oversight soon, but they get my recommendation for several reasons. They have great line of products, they offer great values for the money and they have great people. I sold their products for several years and if I were ever to be back in the actual GPS tracking business I certainly would sell them again. They are the only current company I know of that gets the "timing issue" right … instead of sending reports at a fixed rate … which always seems to be the wrong rate … they send reports by a patented, as needed algorithm that gives them the best tracking plots in the business in my book. recommended.

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Transducer Technologies are a long-time advertiser here at the GPS Tracking ROI blog.  They specialize in load cells, but offer many other interesting products. What’s a load cell?  It’s a device you attach to structures being tested or monitored to measure the strain (loads) being imposed.  I do not know these folks personally, because they are not in my area of expertise, but they have been advertising here for some time … so they must offer items that some of my readers find useful.  For that service, I thank them.

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HandTec  is a top of the line UK-based supplier of GPS hand held and consumer products.  They certainly help point out just how international the world of GPS has become.  I see some very decent prices and a display of real product knowledge on their site, so they certainly have to be on your short list when you are in the market for personal GPS products.

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LandSeaAir is a now a regular advertiser  here at the GPS ROI Tracking blog.  We welcome them and welcome the chance to learn more about them.  As you know from my reports and news flashes they are the leader in moving GPS tracking out of the backroom and into ordinary business vehicle management.

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OK, there you have the highlights. If anyone else has a product or service to offer the readers of the GPS ROI Tracking blog, just shoot me a note via the tracking link under the "About" page. I’m sure we can work out a mutually beneficial arrangement. And most of all, thanks to all of my faithful readers. Advertisers foot the bill abut only readers and subscribers (free, of course) can make the site "happen".  GPS Tracking doesn’t cost, it pays.  Make me prove it!

Proof that there is money in service and GPS tracking can bring it to the bottom line.

OK, Quick, don;t look up at the top of the page … what’s the title of this blog? GPS ROI, right? I’ve written a lot of times how much money you can bring to the bottom line by treating your necessary service work not as an ‘evil” that must be minimized but as a bona fide business asset that can give you a real rate of return (ROI) on your investment. here’s a nice piece from a major UK company who has found their profit proof:

Masternaut has won a five year GBP 1million contract with Barloworld Handling to provide web-based vehicle tracking for 550 service vehicles. Barloworld is the largest independent distributor of fork lift trucks in the world and manages a fleet of over 30,000 fork lifts for customers in the UK alone. With fork lifts critical to many manufacturing, warehousing and other industrial operations, the company offers round-the-clock maintenance services through 23 regional support centres.
Masternaut is being fitted to Barloworld’s entire UK service fleet in order to boost customer service and improve efficiency. With live tracking over the web, despatchers are able to immediately assign the nearest engineer according to skills required and improve planning so that routes and schedules are optimised. Full Lift Truck Service Profit article here.

I have to admit I was a little mystified by the headline on this one. I don’t think the contract is about installing GPS tracking on 30,000 lift trucks (forklifts), I think it is about the efficiencies and thus profits gained by Barloworld handling equipping their 500-odd field service engineers with GPS tracking on the service vehicles. Savings? You betcha:

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Several times in the recent past I’ve mentioned the use of anonymous GPS Tracking data from highway vehicles to use as inputs to Intelligent Transportation Services (ITS) and other technology systems to aid the calculation and display of traffic flows. There are a number of methods used to measure traffic flow parameters and GPS Tracking is just coming into its own in this field.

Most systems rely on the classic inductive pavement loop sensors that operate like the illustration here. You’ve seen these thousands and thousands of times, perhaps without realizing it because they are used all over the world to control intelligent traffic light systems. As you roll up to your next red light, look down at the pavement as you come up to the “stop line” painted on the road surface. You can often see that the road has been slit and then filled in with some kind of sealant in a rectangular pattern. That’s the most common installation method for these sensors. Commonly they have only been used to tell the computer that controls the timing of the traffic signal about vehicles waiting in the lane for a green light. But they can also be aggregated into a traffic information system and give a world of information to traffic managers, planners and real-time controllers.

Like almost everything involving technology they have their pluses and minuses: (more…)