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Changing the Law Just Made It Worse

November 09, 2008 By: Mr. GPS Category: GPS Help or Hurt, GPS for Business, GPS for Life, Uncategorized

Today I saw some troubling new news regarding the Federal Hours Of Service (HOS) regulations for commercial trucking. The law was changed at the beginning of the year, with wrenching results to some areas of the industry. The reason for the change in the law was trumpeted as a step to reduce drivers working too many hours and having fatigue and sleep related accidents. Well, as recorded in the Electric Trucker:

Not only are more drivers suffering drowsiness and sleep incidents at the wheel, but at least 25% are violating the law, to drive longer, make more money and put themselves and others at risk. For years the law has been enforced by self-recorded paper log books, maintained by the drivers themselves. See an excellent example and explanation here:

It’s no coincidence that for years these books have carried the name “swindle sheets”. Sometimes this appellation is earned by cheating people but much more often it’s a case of everything being so darned complicated and hard to check up on. You would think, giving the huge costs and serious safety issues involved that this would be handled by computers. Well, you’d be wrong. Exactly 1 (yes one) major long haul carrier keeps their drivers safe and legal solely by means of on-board GPS tracking and a computerized log program. (The company is Werner Enterprises and their GPS tracking partner, Qualcomm, and hats off to them for doing it). There are tons of logging programs that keep the “swindle Sheet” electronically, but the data is still dependent on the drivers memory, integrity and ability to code with the ever more complex regulations.

The purpose of today’s rant is to wonder why more companies don’t make use of simple, cheap GPS logging systems that could save lives and millions of dollars per year? Perhaps they are waiting for even more government regulations?

Dave
www.satviz.com

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How ’bout Them Rockies ?!?

October 07, 2007 By: Dave Starr Category: Uncategorized

After 15 years, ‘fly over country” gets some respect!

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Finding Your Way Around Tracking ROI …. GPS Not Needed

May 28, 2007 By: Mr. GPS Category: Uncategorized

A small editorial update here … many readers, including me … have a difficult time finding what we want to read here on the GPS Tracking ROI blog. For one thing the free-form search function isn’t working … look for that to be updated real soon now.

In the meantime there’s a new “Archives” page at the top menu, just one click there and there is every post that ever was.

I have a better archive page waiting in the wings, but in the meantime this will help.

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GPS, Buses and Old Age

August 12, 2006 By: Mr. GPS Category: GPS Busses, GPS for Business, Uncategorized

Yes you have seen this post before. It’s one of the last I’m bringing over from my other blog, GPS Bus, which I am shutting down due to lack of news items/readership. Anybody wanna buy a great domain, gpsbus.com I’ll seel it really cheap.

I’m going to keep on this American anti-public transpo attitude for as long as it takes … or until gas goes back down to 99 cents agallon … which is three times what it ought to cost by the way. We can not solve the prblems of global warming, energy dependence and over crowding unless we wise up an stop watching every executive and every soccer mom driving by themselves … or with one pampered kid … in a damn SUV. We may not wake up in my lifetime, but others will put out the message as well. Read and heed.

MICHAEL BARBER
Herald Staff Writer

Ralph Kramden couldn’t have seen this coming.

Buses in Manatee and Sarasota counties will one day soon be fitted with satellite technology that will allow riders to monitor the movements of buses.

The systems, known as Automotive Vehicle Locators, utilize global positioning technology to track the movements of mass transit vehicles.

This summer, AVL devices will be installed on Manatee County Area Transit buses, according to Ralf Heseler, transit manager for Manatee County. MCAT has 21 full-sized buses, 22 smaller transit vehicles and five trolleys.

“The systems will initially be used for our own internal purposes,” Heseler said. “Sometime during the next calendar year we hope to have the technology available for our customers.” … Rest of Article Here:

Here’s some good news for Manatee and Sarasota counties in Florida. Good news for the world of public transpo in general, as well.

So many of our public transport agencies run themselves as poor stepchildren with no means of supporting themselves except by public handout. It’s one hell of a way to run a railroad, especially in today’s world of $3.00 gas and in a state with a high proportion of retirees. It’s all very well and good to hop in the Beemer and denigrate public transport as too slow and smelly when you’re 30, but as Billy Joel once pointed out,, in Somewhere Along The Line: …..

(more…)

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Do We Care Enough?

August 04, 2006 By: Mr. GPS Category: GPS for Business, Uncategorized

Blogged under Transit Busses, Tutorials by Bussy on Saturday 17 June 2006 at 12:25

by Bruce Schaller
June, 2006

While most industries in New York place a premium on using time efficiently, bus service in New York City has only become a slower and less efficient way to get around. What will be required to make buses move faster, reduce the waits at bus stops and make the entire experience more comfortable and reliable?

That’s the question now being considered for 15 bus routes scattered throughout the city that are being looked at for bus rapid transit (BRT) service by the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). This month, the two agencies released concept plans for the 15 routes and held public workshops in each borough to gather feedback. They plan to choose five of the 15 by the end of the summer for development and implementation of the services by 2008, which would replace the current limited stop service on the selected routes. Local service would be continued.. Much More in the Full Article Here


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Here’s a really interesting article that covers quite a few of the current best practices and those that should be. I advise those interested to read the whole article, but I’ll give some summary and analysis here.

First of all, just how slow are busses? The answer, in cities anyway. is inexcusably slow. In many cases only 7 to 9 miles per hour.

Folks, I have a lot of time living in China and Thailand and the Philippines. An energetic young pedaler on a man-powered passenger trike in any of those countries can do better than 7 miles per hour, believe me. Public transportation is important to those who can’t drive cars. IOh, of course, if your a dyed in the wool conservative from Colorado Springs you can alway pursue the Dubya outlook and just say “Piss on anyone who doesn’t drive a Beemer … but, Daddy Warbucks, you’ll wind up paying for them on the welfare end of the scale, so wouldn’yt in be better if they could work and opay taxes?

It’s doubly important in the face of our energy crisis. We need to do better than 7 miles per hour.

Secondly, we need to look at bus lanes. In many cases a driver in his own private car couldn’t do much better speed-wise than current city buses, because the bus stops, turn lanes, etc. are designed purely as an afterthought. It’s great to subscribe to the principle that all men are created equal, but vehicles that carry forty or more passengers at a time logically should be a little “more equal”. The object is to move people efficiently, not try to make everyone on the road happy all the time.

Thirdly, busses are designed today as if the operators wanted people to stay off them. How many places require “exact change” or tokens or passes that have to be purchased at inconvenient times in locations perhaps not even on the bus routes? The city where I am writing this has a not bad bus system and a route passes within easy walking distance of my house, but if I needed to go down town the bus system would be my last choice. Why? I don’t know what the fare is, I could walk to the convenience store at the bus stop and buy any one of 18 or 20 different lottery tickets but I can’t buy a bus pass or token there, and I have to be Internet-enabled, or be down town at the central depot to even find out the schedule. Again, the Beemer crowd is interested in doing away with public transportation much more than they are interested in making it work. Send the poor back to Mexicao … even if that’s not where they come from.

I have a free transponder in my car that let’s me zoom onto .local toll roads and even HOV lanes on the expressway for a fee, automatically charged to me, but to ride the bus in lieu of polluting with my car I have to take an exercise in logistics planning. It would be dirt simple to put credit card readers on the busses and to issue a little “charge fob” from the city to any rider who wants one, speeding people on an off the bus, eliminating cash collection problems and enticing riders aboard. I can get a library card just by asking that even lets me check my books out self-serve, but I can’t ride the bus to the library unless I have exact change. After all, if someone isn’t watching me I might steal a ride. In order to see the sad humor of this you really should take alook at busses here in Colorado Springs. There’s seldom more thna one or two people aside from the driver … steal a seat? They are doing such a great “anti-rider” campaign that 90% of the seats could be “stollen” and the buses still wouldn’t be full. Anti-rider. Anti public transpo. Self-defeating. I just don’t think anyone cares … as long as they have theirs …

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Tracking Buses Doen’t Cost, It Pays and it Saves Lives

August 03, 2006 By: Mr. GPS Category: GPS for Business, Uncategorized

This is aprevously published post from my former blog at www.gpsbus.com.  I’m closing that blog and moving any of the still interesting/relevant articles here.  Enjoy.

Ever since the 9-11 terrorist attacks, airlines have been beefing up security. Now, one local bus company is going high tech to keep its passengers safe by using GPS or Global Positioning Satellite system.

Over a year ago, a woman hijacked a passenger bus in Minnesota, holding the driver at knifepoint and leading law enforcement on a wild ride through two states. Despite a call from a cell phone inside the bus, authorities weren’t sure of its location for several minutes until one of the passengers spotted an identifiable landmark.

But now with GPS onboard as a special passenger, travelers can ride and rest a little easier…. Full Article Here:

It’s been nearly 5 years now since the tragedy of 9/11, yet so many agencies and commercial companies are just now waking up to the fact that it happened, it could happen again, and we need to do things to avoid or mitigate a repeat.  We beat ourselves up deciding if we should allow cigarette lighters or matches on airplanes, we operate under alw so secret the citizens it applies to can’t see it, we label prominent senators as security risks, but we haven’t done a damn thing except put up som eposters to keep city transportation safer.  It’s sad, sad indeed, like “Brownie” emailing about shirt cuffs buttoned or rolled up while New Orleans drowned.

Perhaps the recent excellent wok by the RCMP in Toronto may have woken a few people up. This article, though, seems to have been prompted by a few folks who were already awake. My hat’s off.

A bus is a large vehicle that must, by necessity, must be open to the public. It makes a lot of sense to monitor where busses are, what they are doing, and who’s doing it.  It’s also a concentration point for passengers and avehicle easily capable of carrying heavy weights of explovises into sensitive ares.  It cried out for GPS monitoring.

The part that seems very hard for some operators to realize is that GPS monitoring doesn’t cost, it pays. It pays in at least three ways:

  1. Fuel Savings: If you think there isn’t a lot of waste … especially idling in the average transport organization, then you have never looked very closely. City buses routinely idle at stops at the end of the route or when they start running ahead of schedule and need to kill time. Charter busses idle (Personally I have seen an hour or more) while their passengers are off on tours. School buses idle outside school building not only wasting fuel but breaking Federal law.
  2. Labor costs: So far I am 100% with installations of GPS tracking technology in finding at least enough mistaken or “phony” labor time charges t pay for the units on time and accounting savings alone. 100%. Think that can’t be the way it is in your organization? Want to call my bluff?
  3. Safety and Risk Management. One of the hidden and potentially huge costs in public transpo is liability. No matter what happens that injures a passenger it seems the government agency or commercial company is at fault. GPS can’t stop accidents nor can it eliminate claims but companies in the transportation business have reduced claims to the tune of four times the cost of their GPS systems.

It pays, there’s nothing else to say.

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A “Great New Idea” That Is Already Here

August 02, 2006 By: Mr. GPS Category: GPS Successes, GPS for Business, Uncategorized

I frequently read about “great ideas” to increase transit ridership with GPS. Many of the folks … even some businesses … haven’t done their homework. This technology is alive and well already in many cities. Here’s a live example from the People’s Republic of Boulder in Colorado:

The company who furnishes these systems, Nextbus powers many, many systems. Prices star as low as $50 per month per bus. Since ridership and customer complaints are the number one problems facing transit systems, there’s really no reason not to buy into something like this, it’s the future of public transportation.

There are really only two ways to deal with managing public transportation.  Whine, obfiscate and give up, or innovate, promote and act as if you are doing something worthwhile for your community.  Which one is right for you?

Here’s another live example to whet your appetite:

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