Pedelecs are considered conventional bicycles with a little bit of a twist in that your pedalling is assisted by a small electric motor. How cool is that?

These bicycles are different from standard e-bikes in that the power to the motor is cut when you aren’t pedalling or your speed exceeds a certain “cut-off” number, typically 16 miles per hour.

Regardless of what kind of pedelec you own, protecting your investment is essential and GPS tracking can help you do just that in many different ways, including those listed below.

Theft Recovery

Theft happens, particularly when it comes to attractive bicycles and pedelecs. The problem of bicycle theft was so prominent in Baltimore that the city suspended its bike-sharing program, which featured the largest pedelec fleet in the country for a month.

GPS tracking has eased the ability to track and secure the return of stolen bikes making it a real winner for many considering this type of investment.

Track Your Route

Not all benefits of GPS tracking for pedelecs are related to theft recovery and bicycle security. Some of it relates to the fun you can have by tracking your route (to help determine the calories you’ve burned, the miles you’ve ridden, or even to coordinate with friends to meet somewhere in the middle). GPS tracking makes all these things and more possible – even when on the go.

Map Where You’re Going

Sometimes it’s fun to ride in unfamiliar territory, especially when you can rest assured that your ride home will be assisted. GPS tracking means you can ride with confidence that you’ll be able to map out a safe route and avoid getting lost along the way. At its heart and soul, GPS tracking remains a formidable tool for mapping routes, identifying more efficient routes, and even avoiding certain streets and roadways.

You can even find some GPS mapping programs that will map the ease of the route and potential delays along the way so you can find the most scenic route, shortest, route, or most challenging route to take according to your interests.

Receive Text Alerts for Specific Situations

You can even set up alerts that will let you know whenever your pedelec is operational during designated sleep times or moving outside of designated geographical limits. Either way, you’ll be the first to know if someone has taken your pedelec where it should not go so you can notify the authorities and facilitate the swift recovery of your bike.

For all these reasons and more, GPS tracking is the way to go when it comes to securing the investment you’ve made in a pedelec. Get GPS tracking today and see what a difference it makes in your enjoyment of your bike and peace of mind.

East African elephants’ behavior is adapting to survive poachers; their greatest threat.

The peer-reviewed Ecological Indicators Journal published a study this week suggesting that elephants are aware of poaching gangs and the dangers of them and have started to move at night to avoid them.

The University of Twente that is partners with the Kenya Wildlife Service and the Kenya-based charity Save the Elephants carried out the study. They used mortality data and GPS tracking between 2002 and 2012 in northern Kenya.

This data helped them measure the “night-day speed ratio” of the elephants’ movements in relation to how many poachers were around in the nearby areas.  Researchers found that both female and male elephants moved at night more than they did day when poachers tended to be more active.

Elephants can see in dim light just as well as in the daylight, but their behavior changes could present additional threats. Nighttime movement may expose baby elephants to the dangers of lions attacking them, losing their mothers or other predators that lurk around and hunt during the night attacking them.

This research shows the elephants flexibly adapt their behaviors to stay safe, according to Lain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants. This change in their movement behavior has implications for their survival and reproduction and foraging strategy which aren’t understood completely.

Researchers believe they can monitor the results to help identify changes in levels of poaching on an almost real-time basis. And, this could end up being an effective tool in saving the elephants’ lives.

The most exciting finding of this research is being able to apply GPS tracking to prevent poaching, according to a consultant of the British animal rights organization Born Free Foundation’s, Ian Redmond.

Redmond called it a stroke of genius and told Newsweek the change in the elephants’ behavior didn’t surprise them since they already knew that elephants were very intelligent animals. An elephant’s brain actually 4 times the size of a human’s brains, he said.

But, GPS tracking can be a useful wildlife management tool, he added. He claims it’s fascinating research.

Redmond says, that GPS tracking acts like an extra range of eyes on the ground that monitor the day-night speed ration and possibly alert anti-poaching patrols before poachers are able to kill the elephants.

GPS employee tracking can be highly beneficial for employers in every industry. It isn’t solely for use with giant trucking fleets. In fact, some businesses that benefit from GPS employee tracking might surprise you. Below are four solid reasons to consider GPS employee tracking for a wide range of businesses.

1) Improve Productivity

Employees who know they are being monitored are more likely to stay on task. It really is as simple as that. While employers would like to believe that their employees are dedicated and task oriented, GPS tracking allows you to know for sure.

It allows you the opportunity to check up on them, remotely, throughout the day to make sure they’re where they are supposed to be and to determine how much time they spend at various job sites, sitting in traffic, or otherwise wasting time.

2) Ensures Compliance

With new regulations impacting fleets and fleet drivers, like the Electronic Logging Device (ELD) rule, GPS tracking can help you make sure your drivers are logging the proper number of rest hours and driving hours on any given day. More importantly, GPS can help you keep accurate records and logs of your employees for things like payroll, government records, billing, log books, and more.

3) Quickly Locate Key Staff Members

Sometimes it is necessary to locate members of your staff quickly and discreetly. Providing certain staff members with location tracking allows you to take them aside swiftly to redirect them to emergencies and other potential problems in the workplace – this is especially useful for medical staff in hospital and clinical environments.

4) Encourage Safe Driving

When you have a fleet of vehicles on the road it can be difficult to keep up with the driving patterns and behaviors of one potentially problematic driver. However, GPS fleet tracking allows you to receive email notifications and alerts for certain unsafe driving practices and aggressive driving behaviors.

You can set it up so that you receive text or email alerts when drivers speed, weave in and out of traffic, hard brake, and engage in other risky actions on the road. This will help to address the issue of problem drivers and take appropriate disciplinary actions while also helping you to protect the reputation of your business and your other drivers who do not driver as aggressively.

Of course, these are not the only reasons to invest in GPS employee tracking, but they are among the most important reasons for many businesses. Also consider the benefit of being able to quickly locate and respond when employee vehicles are involved in accidents or other emergencies. The benefits are endless.

If you’re considering GPS employee tracking, take a look at our Drive Trac Employee Tracker App, which is only $10 per user, billed monthly.