GPS tracking of work cars...interesting.

2011G6E · 27-05-2011, 01:49 AM

Interesting...and a little worrying.

I was chatting to a supervisor tonight, and he had a map up on his computer screen, with several boxes on it with car regos I recognised. They were our work vehicles. I knew of course, as does everyone here, that our cars all have GPS trackers in them, but I didn't know the level of detail they go to.

The list of things they tracked was, of course, location, speed, average speed, "excessive acceleration" (of a kph/second figure), excessive braking (more than 21kph/second...one guy had 34kph/second...obviously a roo jumped out), "violent cornering" (measured as a change of direction of 70 degrees from original course at 50kph or greater), and (amazingly) whether you had not put the handbrake on when parking it..."not securing vehicle correctly", that one was marked as...odd seeing as how they are all automatics...

They keep a full...and I mean full...log of everyones car driving, as we have to fill out log books when we take a car anywhere, so they know who was in the drivers seat.

Now, the problem starts when you "speed"...some guys have been asked to please explain when they have showed up as spiking briefly at up to 120kph. This is, as happened to me tonight, when overtaking a slow moving semi trailer with a wide load on it. I got up to 118 or so getting past him. I was acutely aware of the tracking I had just seen, so I tried sitting on 100kph to overtake...but unless I had about ten kilometers of clear road, there was no way I was going to get past without "speeding". Stay behind him, you say? What, go the rest of the 215km journey to meet the train we were relieveing at 85kph instead of just flooring it and getting past as safely and quickly as possible?

Of course, this last bit is exactly what the poilce say you should do, as they claim you cannot speed by one kph, even when overtaking.

I wonder how many accidents would occur if safety idiots got thier way and 100kph speed limiters were fitted to cars? I wonder also how much traffic congestion would be caused when no one could overtake someone doing 93kph without waiting in vain for a long enough piece of road to dawdle past...

Most of all, I wonder how long before this sort of GPS tracking is seen as "a good thing" by safetycrats in Canberra...it's getting cheaper and cheaper...

vanman_75 · 27-05-2011, 08:23 AM

We have this gear on,the vehicles on site at work , failed to help them , as the amount of raw data was too much for them to monitor .our shovel ute was having up to 2000 violations a week .

So they don't bother fixing them anymore , very expensive big brother exercise that failed , they made all the usual threats , but would of had to sack the whole site lol.

JG65TE · 27-05-2011, 08:33 AM

every place seems to run em now in the transport industry. One place I was workin had a 20' of plasma tvs cut open and loaded into a mr and driven off the premises during the night. The boss laughed when we told him. He sat at the computer and told the cops exactly where the truck went and where it was parked now. In that situation it worked well, as for rinign the driver and asking why he was stopped for 10 minutes at somewere on his route is a bit o.t.t.

My poor XF · 27-05-2011, 08:39 AM

We utilize them at work for our pathology couriers, our aim is to see where they are and arrange the urgent pickups around who's closest to the job.

We get speed, heading etc etc but it's not worth someone watching all day just to get the odd speeder. Adelaides camera's usually do that for me.

aussie muscle · 27-05-2011, 09:23 AM

i've added one to my own car, for theft purposes only. it uses sms only, so no big phone bill, and no live tracking (it can be set for regular updates if needed).

Cheech · 27-05-2011, 09:46 AM

My father in laws company installed these...so all the drivers did a group buy on tracker blockers that jam GPS tracking !

maty · 27-05-2011, 10:04 AM

trucks have had this technology 4 years.All of works interstate linehaul vehicles have a sensor we swipe our work ID in front of and this registers who is driving the truck when it starts. Also everything is recorded GPS ,speed etc big brother is watching.

TZENU · 27-05-2011, 10:49 AM

We run them at work on our trucks, but don't really pull up the drivers unless they are constantly excessively speeding... It also shows how long a truck is idling for and at what time it starts and stops which helps us determine how long a driver has to wait at a site.

ray38l · 27-05-2011, 11:58 AM

The security company i used to work at were testing them on our site.
It was wired into the seatbelt warning light so they knew when we were in the seat or not, also into the door open switch. We hated it because it wasn't used mainly for safety. It was used purely to spy on us. It made no sense because we had to "probe" on at every site anyway, so they already had an electronic record of where we had been. All they wanted was to make sure we weren't taking to Long checking properties.
Everyday i would have warning letters of what i had done wrong. Eventually everyone just did everything they could possibly do wrong just to **** them off.
I don't know if they still use the system because i quit because of it. I don't really have a problem with the system, just what the company is using the information for.

Zero_PSI · 27-05-2011, 12:43 PM

We had these on the trucks at my old work. Could even tell what temperature the climate control was on. Never heard of anyone getting in trouble though as there's too many variables like loadshift etc. To cause the alerts.

Id love too see what this system would do on a hills run in my ute lol.

2011G6E · 27-05-2011, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ray38l

The security company i used to work at were testing them on our site.
It was wired into the seatbelt warning light so they knew when we were in the seat or not, also into the door open switch. We hated it because it wasn't used mainly for safety. It was used purely to spy on us. It made no sense because we had to "probe" on at every site anyway, so they already had an electronic record of where we had been. All they wanted was to make sure we weren't taking to Long checking properties.
Everyday i would have warning letters of what i had done wrong. Eventually everyone just did everything they could possibly do wrong just to **** them off.
I don't know if they still use the system because i quit because of it. I don't really have a problem with the system, just what the company is using the information for.

Yes well, I never really used the handbrake in an automatic before anyway (unless parked on a big hill), but since I found out about this, I'm going to make a point of never using it in a work truck and see what is said about it. Be nice to see thier justification for a "please explain".

Geez Louise · 27-05-2011, 01:41 PM

My boss has them fitted in all the work trucks. He runs really detailed reports. All the drivers know they are fitted so it is no real drama. The only driver that kicked up a fuss about them was taking his time doing his job (paid hourly) so he left not long after they were put in of his own accord.

They work really well for my boss's company as it is a multi drop business and the reports helped him sort everything out so deliveries are done faster. It has worked out better for him and the workers.

Some drivers have less drops now and some have more but it is a lot more efficent. I don't see any issue with having them fitted.

superpursuit83 · 27-05-2011, 01:58 PM

I run a GPS Tracker in the ute from Securetronics. SMS reports of location and remote shutdown ability.

I keep getting asked by salesmen to put them in my cranes but if I dont know where they are and what they are doing I may as well sell up.
And the speeding is no prob. We get photos fromspeed cameras, and they know if they have no license then they have no job!

Kieron · 27-05-2011, 02:07 PM

An ex family member of mine's company installed these devices many years ago in the UK, they were able to easily detect excess fuel usage and arrange for the vehicle to be looked at next time it was in the depot.

Courier companies also use it to track parcel locations, very handy for the receiving customer as the courier co. knew the truck would be say at Watford Gap on the M1 and it takes X mins to get to Oxford st from there.

He also installed it in many council rubbish trucks, I guess the council could accurately estimate when your bin would be emptied should you need to know hehe

Also installed it in MetPol Panda cars in London which proved very handy in contacting cops who were closest to where assistance was needed.

Plenty of good uses for it, just depends on the companies motive for installing it I guess.

Ben73 · 27-05-2011, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Interesting...and a little worrying.

I was chatting to a supervisor tonight, and he had a map up on his computer screen, with several boxes on it with car regos I recognised. They were our work vehicles. I knew of course, as does everyone here, that our cars all have GPS trackers in them, but I didn't know the level of detail they go to.

The list of things they tracked was, of course, location, speed, average speed, "excessive acceleration" (of a kph/second figure), excessive braking (more than 21kph/second...one guy had 34kph/second...obviously a roo jumped out), "violent cornering" (measured as a change of direction of 70 degrees from original course at 50kph or greater), and (amazingly) whether you had not put the handbrake on when parking it..."not securing vehicle correctly", that one was marked as...odd seeing as how they are all automatics...

They keep a full...and I mean full...log of everyones car driving, as we have to fill out log books when we take a car anywhere, so they know who was in the drivers seat.

Now, the problem starts when you "speed"...some guys have been asked to please explain when they have showed up as spiking briefly at up to 120kph. This is, as happened to me tonight, when overtaking a slow moving semi trailer with a wide load on it. I got up to 118 or so getting past him. I was acutely aware of the tracking I had just seen, so I tried sitting on 100kph to overtake...but unless I had about ten kilometers of clear road, there was no way I was going to get past without "speeding". Stay behind him, you say? What, go the rest of the 215km journey to meet the train we were relieveing at 85kph instead of just flooring it and getting past as safely and quickly as possible?

Of course, this last bit is exactly what the poilce say you should do, as they claim you cannot speed by one kph, even when overtaking.

I wonder how many accidents would occur if safety idiots got thier way and 100kph speed limiters were fitted to cars? I wonder also how much traffic congestion would be caused when no one could overtake someone doing 93kph without waiting in vain for a long enough piece of road to dawdle past...

Most of all, I wonder how long before this sort of GPS tracking is seen as "a good thing" by safetycrats in Canberra...it's getting cheaper and cheaper...

Given the fact I pretty much work for the same company a you, just in a different state, I'm guessing that our GPS are probably as detailed as yours.

Few weeks ago I was on a long barracks job driving back to the depot and there was a slow moving caravan that was SLOW in the corners, and on the limit on the straights, so I passed them on the wrong side of the road at about 135. I Expected a letter, but nothing was ever said to me.

Interesting about the acceleration and deceleration.
Its a wonder they have said nothing to me about flat flooring it away from traffic lights at the end of a long shift. I'm not the only one who does it. Some guys do it all the time.
I guess 4cylinder Diesel Prado's cannot accelerate at the rate of 21kmh/second.

What call cars do you use up in QLD?

mrbaxr6t · 27-05-2011, 04:23 PM

I can see good uses for such technology - A night patrol officer (security guard) was assaulted and as a result the car remained immobile for 25 minutes at which time a secondary vehicle that was in the area was ordered to go to the location of the first car, upon arrival due to the "findings" police were called to the site and many criminals were given the *** whumping of a life time when many police bounced in and I would wager upset at being pulled into work @ 3 am.

We were lucky though minor driving offences and excessive accel/decel in the company cars was for the most part ignored. The technology can be fantastic, what is done with the knowledge gained from the use of it can be terrible

SEZ213 · 27-05-2011, 06:15 PM

From memory, I think three drivers quit when I worked in Melbourne - GPS was added to the vehicles, one would ring all his customers and see if they required gas, then go home for the day until it was 2 o'clock, then come back to the yard...he was canned, the other three quit because they didn't want the questions asked as to why they were where they were.

When working up here, every detail was recorded - quarry trucks, if they went around the corner too quickly, we knew about it - it was also referenced back to vehicle maintenance. If the truck had the same thing require repairs - it was quite often checked off against the GPS logs. A few were asked to 'please explain' why the company had just spent another grand on the same repairs to the truck...

End of the day, they're not our vehicles - why should a company keep paying for someone flogging them?

As far as the safetycrats...I doubt they'll do that to the general public...they make enough money as it is, if you're going to be tagged 24/7 the likelihood of you speeding is low, and therefore so is revenue...

**DJM83** · 27-05-2011, 06:20 PM

All of our (Woolworths) trailers have GPS in them have for a while now.

2011G6E · 27-05-2011, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben73

Given the fact I pretty much work for the same company a you, just in a different state, I'm guessing that our GPS are probably as detailed as yours.

Few weeks ago I was on a long barracks job driving back to the depot and there was a slow moving caravan that was SLOW in the corners, and on the limit on the straights, so I passed them on the wrong side of the road at about 135. I Expected a letter, but nothing was ever said to me.

Interesting about the acceleration and deceleration.
Its a wonder they have said nothing to me about flat flooring it away from traffic lights at the end of a long shift. I'm not the only one who does it. Some guys do it all the time.
I guess 4cylinder Diesel Prado's cannot accelerate at the rate of 21kmh/second.

What call cars do you use up in QLD?

Same vehicles as you apparently...4 cylinder diesel automatic Prados done up to "mine spec" with cargo barriers, roll bars, outside bar work, and flashing lights as well as "lights always on" and spotlights.
And yes, surprisingly, they are a bit of a fireball off the line aren't they...

XRGhia · 27-05-2011, 06:48 PM

STA NSW Have had this sort of stuff going on for a few years now on all of their Sydney, Newcastle and T-Way Buses....

They have them for speed, location and which direction they are heading in, especially on the T-Way...

Camera's are then used for seatbelts and exiting through the drivers window...

Paull · 27-05-2011, 06:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sezzy

As far as the safetycrats...I doubt they'll do that to the general public...they make enough money as it is, if you're going to be tagged 24/7 the likelihood of you speeding is low, and therefore so is revenue...

Makes for a very interesting point that does. That is, would both Federal and State governments mandate this at the lobbying/requests of the safety people or simply ignore it due to the loss in revenue.

It would be very enlightening as to the governments "real intent" for road safety. Or would the civil libertarians jump up and down and scream blue murder?????

gravelrash · 27-05-2011, 06:59 PM

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Vehicle-C...item19c4aefb4b

problem solved....

Spanrz · 27-05-2011, 07:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gravelrash

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Vehicle-C...item19c4aefb4b

problem solved....

I find this hilarious... LOL....If my job was that bad, to be using one of these baby's, I'd find another job.
I'd find it pretty hard to get away with it more than a week, seeming the boss will sense something going on.

Would you put faith in it? For $18.89aud?

flappist · 27-05-2011, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spanrz

I find this hilarious... LOL....If my job was that bad, to be using one of these baby's, I'd find another job.
I'd find it pretty hard to get away with it more than a week, seeming the boss will sense something going on.

Would you put faith in it? For $18.89aud?

Yeh they work. All that they do is spew out low powered rubbish on the Sat freqs (one and a bit gigglehertz) making the GPS lose lock.

AND they are legal as their emmissions are below the standard.

Now what we really need are wcdma jammers that are mandatory in all P platers' cars activated whenever the ignition is on.....

edit: bugger bugger poo bum, ACMA have prohibited GPS and WCDMA jammers outright......so looks like you should not tell anyone....just keep it with your radar detector....

XRGhia · 27-05-2011, 08:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flappist

Now what we really need are wcdma jammers that are mandatory in all P platers' cars activated whenever the ignition is on.....

Amen

jpd80 · 27-05-2011, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

34kph/second...obviously a roo jumped out), "violent cornering" (measured as a change of direction of 70 degrees from original course at 50kph or greater), and (amazingly) whether you had not put the handbrake on when parking it..."not securing vehicle correctly", that one was marked as...odd seeing as how they are all automatics...

Parking pawl in an auto is unacceptable as a parking brake.

Quote:

Most of all, I wonder how long before this sort of GPS tracking is seen as "a good thing" by safetycrats in Canberra...it's getting cheaper and cheaper...

Makes you wonder how long before compulsory speed limiters are installed in cars and linked to GPS tracking so that it's impossible to speed.

Nah, scrub that...the government would lose too much revenue.

FgNewbie · 27-05-2011, 09:03 PM

flappist I was of the belief there was a blanket ban on RNSS/GPS jammers.

Couldn't find the doc I wanted but this makes reference about halfway down http://www.acma.gov.au/scripts/nc.dl...001/pc=PC_1296

edit: I'm basically asking, not disputing, is there a doc I can read ? ta

Franco Cozzo · 27-05-2011, 09:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpd80

Nah, scrub that...the government would lose too much revenue.

No, just when ever a car is detected going 3km/h over the speed limit, it sends a fine to arrive in the mail. Don't actually speed limit the car haha.

nstg8a · 27-05-2011, 09:21 PM

when i was at veridian they bought these in to use on the glass trucks, caused a bit of drama, because some of the trucks are owner operated, and they quite rightly didnt want the company knowing what they were doing in their own time. (a couple moonlighted for other companies in their own time)

drivers now trwat as a joke, have their own wagers on who gets the most red flags in a day etc. the toowoomba truck still holds the record i think, for 138 speed limit violations in one day. mainly due to the amount of road changes that the gps hadnt allowed for.

but certainly very very detailed info, right down to how long the truck had been idling, and if the driver was in the cab.