Tracking my company vehicles(GPS)

[SteveBailey]

Does anyone know anyhting about these units?  Have recommendations?  I want to be able to track my  vehicles in real time, graphically, and be able to remotely download the trip data from the vehicles.


Thanks for any help,


Steve

[Curval]

The drivers will revolt!

[SteveBailey]

The drivers will revolt!

You could be right.. if they knew.   

[Xargos]

If you're paying the insurance and taxes on the vehicles, they shouldn't have a problem.

[storch]

The drivers will revolt!

they sure will.  I considered doing the same thing and asked a friend who has a few service trucks on the road and his guys were actually less productive even though he cut down their suck off time considerably.  I came to the conclusion that if a guy wants to visit his honey mid day on my dime I'm ok with it, I prefer the harmony and the good will I have in my shop.

[Curval]

As long as the girlfriend isn't too far away I suppose.  I imagine these days, with gas prices where they are, the suck off time isn't the problem as much as the gas being burned while chores are being done and friends picked up from out-of-the-way locations etc on your dime.

[StugIII]

truckers are starting to get GPS put in there trucks, like it tracks them in real time, downloads the data to the main computer and yea, its to make sure that the truckers done run away or someone if they steal a truck can be tracked. I dont know what its called srry, but i think that if u trust your workers enough then it wont be needed.

[SteveBailey]

but i think that if u trust your workers enough then it wont be needed.

LOL. It's foolish to trust employees completely, insane to trust new-hires.

came to the conclusion that if a guy wants to visit his honey mid day on my dime I'm ok with it, I prefer the harmony and the good will I have in my shop.

Storch, this is insightful. What I want to be on the watch for is after-hours usage of my vehicles as I let my drivers take their vehicles home at the end of each day to save them from having to drive to my office each day. I wouldn't get too bent if an otherwise reliable employee made a "pit stop" now and then.  That's not what I'm concerned about.

Additionally, if you have an employee that's suspect or someone has "dropped dime" on you could confirm suspicions or exonerate him rather simply. This is a small thing though, as I said, I'm almost exclusively concerned about after-hours usage.

[VonMessa]

Qualcomm? 

 I think their "kid tracker"  might work.  I think that's the one that even gives you trip data  ( speed driven, acceleration, etc)

[REP0MAN]

Steve-o....

I work for Cox Communications here in Tulsa (was there in Phoenix too) and we use a program called "@Roads". My supervisor can pull up the Applet on his laptop from anywhere and locate my work truck down to 10 feet. Real time (slight delay /5 minute max). Plus, he gets an Idle report every morning in his email. If we idle longer than 10 minutes at any given time, he knows about it and we get yelled at. With gas prices forcing our operating budget to forecast 2 million over budget for 08, they are very interested in keeping tabs on us. I take my company vehicle home and have strict restrictions when I am off the clock with regards to their vehicle. I believe you can set it up to alarm you if it leaves a certain containment area that you set up. Thats a nice feature too.

http://www.trackmyvehicle.com/piccolo-st.asp

[wrongwayric]

As a truck driver the companies i've worked for have used the GPS for years. So far the 2 that i'm familiar with are Qualcomm and People Net. Both can be installed easily and have basic feature packages and advanced packages. Depending on what type of vehicles you have, as in a car or small truck i'd say People Net would be the way to go as it uses an antenna just like a cell phone were as Qualcomm uses a large round satellite dish about the size of or slightly larger than a breakfast bowl. If you have cars or small trucks there are probably much smaller and cheaper systems than these that will work just as well but will provide you less information. There are good and bad things about these from an employee stand point. Yes they make it feel like your being watched 24/7 and gives you the feeling of "big brother" standing there. Then again if you ever had a problem, say an accident or something like that, your company knows exactly were you are at and can send help straight to you. One example i can use is a driver of ours had a heart attack, he managed to type in help on the keyboard and tell them what was happening before he passed out. They called 911 and an ambulance arrived within 20 minutes of him sending the message. Saved his life.

[SFRT - Frenchy]

Steve,
I looked for one to manage a 90 truck fleet about a year ago, I wished I remember the name. Might have been http://www.gpstrackit.com/l2000.html. They all do the same reporting real time position/max speed/time of use/ daily reports/ thef alert-recovery ... but the feature I liked on the one we went for was that the GPS was connected to the truck computers letting you know when a mechanical malfunction on your truck was detected, and would even rememebr you of upcoming preventive maintenance. Also had a link to traffic congestion.

Drivers off course hated it because they couldn't BS their way out of anything, but for the fleet manager it dramatically improved the dispatch rate in a matter of a few days.

[Mustaine]

We just installed [http=http://www.peoplenetonline.com/]PeopleNet[/http] units in all of our trucks in the fleet. Many of the features I would guess go way above what you need. I know ATT has a fleet management solution, Qualcomm, and many others. Not all read engine data, and I believe PeopleNet is geared just towards big rigs (at least the engine data cables that come standard).

You can get Nextel phones that do real time GPS for monitoring locations of users, and you should be bale to find a bunch of cheap GPS only solutions.

[Charon]

I just saw a demonstration for a GPS tracker from a company called K-Systems. http://www.ksystemsinc.com/fueloil/tracking.htm The unit costs about $300 and is not limited to the fuel oil industry (where they are marketing it).

Charon

[CAP1]

Does anyone know anyhting about these units?  Have recommendations?  I want to be able to track my  vehicles in real time, graphically, and be able to remotely download the trip data from the vehicles.


Thanks for any help,


Steve

steve,
if you don't mind making a long distance call, call 856-227-8877..that's Borchers Towing. i used to work for him, and installed a system that does what you seem to want....on 7 of his tow trucks. i can't remember the name of the system though, but he is very happy with it though. either ask for Dick(owner) or Jen(daughter/driving force there) .
tell them John(me, the incredibly great diagnostic guy ) told a to call and ask about it......hope this can help ya at least a little.

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