On October 21st of this year, two new European Union satellites were launched into space.  These satellites, mark Europe’s attempt to create their own Global Positioning Satellite system.  Planned over ten years ago, the project has seen its share of delays.  European Union countries wanted to develop a similar system to the United States Global Positioning System, that would not have to rely on a system controlled by the US Government.  Interestingly enough, Russia (Glonass) and China (Baidu) are the only other two nations at this time with their own GPS systems in place.

Pretty cool capabilities.  The atomic clocks on these satellite systems are extremely accurate, losing plus or minus one second every 3 Million years!  The GPS tracking accuracy level of the Galileo system is about one meter.  Their are plans to offer three levels of service; a free service for the general public, a service for businesses which offers encrypted data and even better tracking accuracy levels, and finally a critical level of service option that will be used for safety of life in such situations as search and rescue.

The Galileo satellite system is expected to be functional by 2014 and fully functional by 2020, when additional service will be released.

We’ve been in the GPS tracking world since 2005.  What can gps tracking devices be used for, here is some of the things we have seen over the years.

Personal Use: A teen driver, a toddler, a child on a bus, significant other, personal property.  As far as personal property goes, the strangest one was probably the customer whose potted plant kept getting stolen from his front yard  – yes he did, bury a tracker into the potted plant!  Even more uses, elderly parents, running a marathon, hiking in the mountains and cars.

Business Use: Company vehicles, high value cargo, loss prevention/recovery, employee driving behavior, mobile advertising businesses (proof of where your employees have been), time card verification, routes driven by employees, time spent actually working vs. drive time, security, executive protection, worker safety, cutting your companies fuel bills, supply chain visibility, container tracking, and even dispatching drivers.

Our Most Recent Success Story: Stolen boat recovered within hours of getting stolen, this happened a few months ago with one of our clients.

Animal Tracking: Rhino tracking, elephant tracking, giant tortoise tracking.

These are just some of the uses of GPS tracking devices.

Have you ever watched the television show Numbers?  The show is premised around law enforcement officers tasked with solving crimes, and ultra-smart mathematician’s using mathematical formulas and analysis to help solve these crimes.  While it makes for entertaining television, a group of researchers at UCLA are on course to see if they can in fact predict where crime will occur.

Does this sound far fetched to you?  Actually, the studying of crime patterns in law enforcement has gone on for decades.  This makes complete sense and here’s why.  Many criminals use the same method of operation each time they commit their “crime” of choice.  A burglar, for instance will usually gain access to a structure the same way each time they commit a burglary.  Whether it’s by kicking in a door, or breaking a window, they will usually do it the same way, again and again at each location they burglarize.  A burglar will also typically take the same “type” of property, over and over.  Whether its electronics, jewelry, guns or cash – patterns begin to develop that doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude, the same person is more than likely responsible for the similar crimes occurring in the area.

Researchers are taking this basic premise a step further.  Using advanced mathematical algorithms along with gps tracking data, they are able to do some pretty advanced computer modeling – in the hopes of predicting crime.     UCLA is launching a large scale control study in cooperation with the Los Angeles Police Department.  We look forward to seeing the outcome of this research.  For More Information visit Professor Jeffrey Brantingham’s website on Predictive Policing.

With a live gps tracking system, you are able to see more information, more data – and you are able answer more questions when compared to a system that updates every 5 minutes, or even every 2 minutes.

For example, vehicle mileage and route information will be much more accurate when data is collected at 10 second intervals.    That’s 12x more data than a device updating every 2 minutes.  In a urban environment, how many turns can you make in a vehicle within a two minute window?  A system tracking every 10 seconds will more than likely capture each turn within that same time period.

Route playback.  A system updating every 10 seconds, will show you the exact route driven.  Data included in each 10 second transmission should also include vehicle speed, direction of travel, lat/long and the date/time the vehicle was moving.

Reporting capabilities.  For larger organizations analyzing driver behavior can be a tremendous productivity and cost saving tool.  Being able to see each driver’s entire workday can be very beneficial.  With service companies, where their are thousands of locations serviced by hundreds of drivers, we are able to disseminate vehicle data and produce reports that can:

• Verify Employee Start Time/End Of Day Time
• Monitor Total Time Stopped At Service Location Each Day
• Monitor Time Spent Stopped At Non-Service Locations
• Monitor Actual Time Spent Driving
• Give You A Percentage Of The Total Days Activity

We are available from 7 am – 5 pm PST – Monday through Friday for any questions you may have.

Although we don’t sell GPS Navigation devices, we thought we’d share this with you.

In June of this year, three women relying on their rented vehicle’s gps navigation system actually drove down a boat ramp and into a lake! This happened in Bellevue, Washington.

Apparently, the driver thought she was on a road, when she in fact was driving down a boat launch!

Lesson learned:  GPS navigation devices can be very beneficial to the user.  However, it should never be relied on as a definitive means to get from point A to point B.  There have been many cases where people have followed their GPS navigation devices down long windy unfamiliar roads only to find out the road is closed or not passable.  Actually mapping your location out first, and then using the GPS navigation system to confirm the route is probably the smartest thing to do.  In fact, most smartphones are equipped with software, like Google Maps, which will let you map your route before your trip.