As industries go, the GPS vehicle tracking industry is relatively new. As such, many providers are quickly coming up with creative pricing models to attract new customers. Some have even gone the way of cellular providers, offering high-tech devices (tons of apps!) at highly reduced prices, but with a lengthy contract.
Two questions arise for businesses with the need to track their vehicles:
(1)What to you really need in a device, and
(2)Should you enter into a service contract…even if you get enormous up front discounts?
To address the first question, think about what you are trying to accomplish.
Do you want to stop unauthorized driving?
Do you want to reduce the number of "Where are you calls?"
Do you need to know who is closest to an address right now?
Do you want to log stop times for billing or cost accounting?
Do you want to log mileage for billing or cost accounting?
Do you want to spot overlapping or inefficient routes?
Do you want your drivers to know you can see what they're up to?
Situational awareness is the real necessity for most businesses. Bells & whistles are nice, but not a must-have, and often a distraction. With today’s technology, businesses can purchase devices that provide enough information to answer the questions above for under $150.
Now to our second question, “Should I enter into a contract…for any reason?” No! The answer is “no”. The list of reasons is long but includes:
1.You shouldn’t have to…there are GPS vehicle tracking providers that offer service with NO contract
2.In today’s economy, you never know when you’ll have to scale back. In fact, it’s good business practice to be prepared to do just that. A contract locks you in, and by nature is not flexible.
3.You may have a future need that your existing provider can not support
4.You may simply find a better deal
5.Technology changes quickly. So do payment options in new industries. Your device, and payment plan, may be obsolete before long.
A GPS vehicle tracking system is an investment when you have more than a few vehicles. Make sure you reduce your risks by choosing a plan doesn’t lock you in.
Showing posts with label fleet tracking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fleet tracking. Show all posts
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Is Free Vehicle Tracking Ready for Business?
We all know that times are tough. Your drivers are wasting your money by using YOUR work vehicles for whatever THEY need. Personal errands, the lake on the weekend, you know the story. You want to put an end to this behavior. You want your workers to show up to the job on time. You’ve heard about GPS tracking and think that it will solve your problem. In fact, you’ve heard that Google Latitude will track a GPS –enabled wireless phone for free. It’s almost too good to be true. Can you track your employees and solve your problems for free?
First, let’s consider the wireless phone (handset) itself. Google Latitude must be installed on each handset. This brings us to the first issue with free GPS tracking:
Each handset must be compatible with the Google Latitude application. Generally, this means that all of your handsets will have to be fairly recent smart phones. Those five-year-old Nextel’s will have to go. You’ll probably have to sign contract for new smart phones, you’ll have to buy a data plan for each new smart phone -- that’s how Latitude reports its location -- and you’ll probably want to buy insurance for the new phones. The phones may only cost $99 with a contract, but if you have to replace one mid-contract you’re looking at $400 to $500.
You might also want to think of the wisdom of giving your employees a tantalizing, ever-present distraction. A smart phone with a data connection is a link to the ESPN, YouTube, the Internet, and beyond. It will present temptations that are too much for some to resist.
Now let’s talk about how Google Latitude works. Google Latitude was intended for groups of friends to find each other. In particular, Google Latitude is designed to let you know of chance encounters with friends. Let’s say you live in St. Louis and are visiting New York. Unbeknownst to you, one of your friends, this one from Chicago, is also visiting New York. In fact, this friend is in a restaurant just down the street. If you are both using Google Latitude, you will each receive an alert. Pretty cool!
Things aren’t all peaches and cream. If you’ve read this far you can see that Google Latitude was not designed for business tracking. The first thing that a business user needs is an accurate tracking history. Yes, Latitude can provide a history, but it turns out that this history is nowhere near dense enough for many business uses. You will be lucky to get a report once per minute. And in my experience many of those reports will be cell tower locations, not the actual GPS fix. So it’s good enough to tell you that your employee was in Forest Park, but not good enough to tell you for how long or how they got there. And there’s more.
Smartphone’s are notorious battery hogs. The biggest battery user is the radio. That’s talk-time to you and me. Every GPS position reported uses talk time, and battery life. So your employee had better keep a charger handy. Battery life is a problem with all handset-based tracking systems, not just Latitude. That’s why even commercial phone-tracking systems report once per minute at the most.
And here’s the real killer... the entire application requires extensive cooperation from the handset user, your employee. The user has to have an account with Google, has to start Latitude, and has to let you into his circle. End-user cooperation only works if the end-user has a vested interest in being tracked. This is not just a problem with Latitude. This problem affects virtually all phone-based tracking applications, even commercial systems. If the user doesn’t want to track, he just turns it off.
And what about reporting and all of those other features you expect from GPS tracking? Theoretically you could build all this yourself, but will you? Can you get a stops report from Google Latitude? Can you dispatch drivers with it? And I hope you’re tech savvy, because nobody is being paid to talk to you when you have a problem.
Last but not least, think a little bit about cost. Smart phone data plans start at about $29 per month with a two-year contract. High quality, 20-second tracking starts at $19.99 per month, with no contract. Yes, the device will cost you $150, but along with that you get reports, dispatching, tracking history, and somebody who will answer the phone when you call. Is it worth it? You make the call.
First, let’s consider the wireless phone (handset) itself. Google Latitude must be installed on each handset. This brings us to the first issue with free GPS tracking:
Each handset must be compatible with the Google Latitude application. Generally, this means that all of your handsets will have to be fairly recent smart phones. Those five-year-old Nextel’s will have to go. You’ll probably have to sign contract for new smart phones, you’ll have to buy a data plan for each new smart phone -- that’s how Latitude reports its location -- and you’ll probably want to buy insurance for the new phones. The phones may only cost $99 with a contract, but if you have to replace one mid-contract you’re looking at $400 to $500.
You might also want to think of the wisdom of giving your employees a tantalizing, ever-present distraction. A smart phone with a data connection is a link to the ESPN, YouTube, the Internet, and beyond. It will present temptations that are too much for some to resist.
Now let’s talk about how Google Latitude works. Google Latitude was intended for groups of friends to find each other. In particular, Google Latitude is designed to let you know of chance encounters with friends. Let’s say you live in St. Louis and are visiting New York. Unbeknownst to you, one of your friends, this one from Chicago, is also visiting New York. In fact, this friend is in a restaurant just down the street. If you are both using Google Latitude, you will each receive an alert. Pretty cool!
Things aren’t all peaches and cream. If you’ve read this far you can see that Google Latitude was not designed for business tracking. The first thing that a business user needs is an accurate tracking history. Yes, Latitude can provide a history, but it turns out that this history is nowhere near dense enough for many business uses. You will be lucky to get a report once per minute. And in my experience many of those reports will be cell tower locations, not the actual GPS fix. So it’s good enough to tell you that your employee was in Forest Park, but not good enough to tell you for how long or how they got there. And there’s more.
Smartphone’s are notorious battery hogs. The biggest battery user is the radio. That’s talk-time to you and me. Every GPS position reported uses talk time, and battery life. So your employee had better keep a charger handy. Battery life is a problem with all handset-based tracking systems, not just Latitude. That’s why even commercial phone-tracking systems report once per minute at the most.
And here’s the real killer... the entire application requires extensive cooperation from the handset user, your employee. The user has to have an account with Google, has to start Latitude, and has to let you into his circle. End-user cooperation only works if the end-user has a vested interest in being tracked. This is not just a problem with Latitude. This problem affects virtually all phone-based tracking applications, even commercial systems. If the user doesn’t want to track, he just turns it off.
And what about reporting and all of those other features you expect from GPS tracking? Theoretically you could build all this yourself, but will you? Can you get a stops report from Google Latitude? Can you dispatch drivers with it? And I hope you’re tech savvy, because nobody is being paid to talk to you when you have a problem.
Last but not least, think a little bit about cost. Smart phone data plans start at about $29 per month with a two-year contract. High quality, 20-second tracking starts at $19.99 per month, with no contract. Yes, the device will cost you $150, but along with that you get reports, dispatching, tracking history, and somebody who will answer the phone when you call. Is it worth it? You make the call.
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