In a recent news story, police were able to apprehend a criminal who stole a van because the van was equipped with a GPS tracking device.
A felon spotted a van that was property of a county in New York state and hopped in for a ride. As you probably know some crimes are planned, but many are simply crimes of opportunity. An idling van, an open door…these are the kinds of temptations that criminals find hard to resist.
The employee who had been entrusted with the van was quick to alert his employer and they in turn called the police. Because of the GPS tracking device inside, the police were able to find the van outside of a fast food restaurant. Without the GPS tracking device, who can say how long it would have taken for them to find the vehicle? It surely wasn’t the only county-owned van on the streets. So police would have had to be on the lookout for both the van, not really knowing exactly where it was or who was driving it. A detective in an unmarked car attempted to get the suspect to end his joy ride. The suspect left the vehicle and made a run for it.
Eventually the van thief, someone who had been arrested 17 times in the past, was apprehended.
There is another side to this story though-what about the employees who left the car running and accessible to an opportunistic thief? We didn’t get to read about the end of that person’s story. I’m sure the county was glad that this employee came forward quickly and did not try to hide the theft.
As great as GPS technology is and as much as it can do to help make things more efficient, it doesn’t beat old-fashioned common sense. Most employers would prefer of their employees didn’t leave company vehicles idling, but having a GPS tracking device can add an extra layer of security in the event that something like this does happen.
By: Nancy McCord
Posts Tagged ‘Company Vehicles’
To Catch a Thief – Use a GPS Tracking Device
March 30th, 2010GPS Tracking is Saving Businesses Money
March 15th, 2010
Businesses are saving thousands of dollars per month with GPS vehicle tracking devices.
“Businesses have reported a reduction in fuel usage as the biggest advantage of GPS tracking,” said Brad Borst, Founder and President of RMT. Monitoring and reducing speeds, routes, and idle time are just a few things that fleet owners can do to lower the fuel bill. Each mile per hour above 50 MPH increases fuel consumption by 1 ½ percent. Higher speeds also cause more tire heat, which puts more wear on tires. Wear on tires will almost double at road speeds of 70 MPH or greater. RMT’s GPS tracking systems report all vehicle activity and immediately alerts fleet managers by cell phone and email of speeding and unauthorized use of company vehicles.
Business owners are most concerned with fuel & maintenance, employee overtime, and employee productivity. New GPS technology significantly reducing excess costs for businesses:
1. Fuel & Maintenance – The average operating cost per vehicle is about $1.50 per mile. A company can reduce at least 25 miles per week for each vehicle with a GPS tracking device.
2. Employee Overtime – The employee overtime rate is estimated at about $30 per hour. On average, a company can reduce at least 1 hour of overtime per week with a GPS fleet tracking system.
3. Employee Productivity – On average, each vehicle could complete at lease 1 extra stop, job, or delivery per week with a live GPS tracking unit.
For an average size fleet of 10 vehicles, this means an estimated monthly savings of over $6000 with RMT’s GPS tracking solution.
A new Mileage (odometer) tracking feature for the Discovery LITE GPS fleet tracking system. The mileage tracking will allow fleet managers to observe vehicle performance and maintenance from the convenience of their computer. RMT expects to offer the mileage tracking to its thousands of customers by the end of the month.
By: Brad Borst
GPS Tracking For Vehicles
February 20th, 2010
Where are your cars and other vehicles? Do you know what are they being used for? GPS tracking for vehicles has been more important these days, especially with the gas prices and maintenance costs going up to the roof. There are a lot of benefits you can get from using this device on your vehicles, and with the amount of money you can save on gas and maintenance the service cost that comes with the use of the device will pay for itself.
One of the main benefits of using GPS tracking on your vehicles is being able to pinpoint the location of them when they get stolen. You may have the car insured, but GPS tracking will be so much better because you can directly seek the location of the stolen vehicle and track its movements. You should be able to minimize losses, and in most cases you will have the vehicle back with no trouble at all. Law enforcement agencies are supporting the use of GPS tracking for vehicles; they will respond to your report faster and use the GPS tracking beam to recover your vehicle and arrest the culprit in no time at all.
By being able to track the vehicle’s route, you will also be able to see if the use of each vehicle is efficient. With the gas prices being so high, determining a certain — most efficient — route and carefully monitoring the use of vehicles can save you a lot of unneeded expenses. With company vehicles, you can also track if the vehicle is being used for business or personal reasons. It no secret that company cars are often used for personal purposes, and you can avoid this from happening by monitoring their usage with these solutions. You also need to consider maintenance costs; the more mileage a vehicle goes the more wear it will put to components and parts. By managing the use of vehicles efficiently, you can limit unnecessary use of vehicles and save money on maintenance costs as well. You will be able to calculate exactly how much distance a vehicle go and if it is time to replace certain parts to avoid bigger problems as well.
Like I said earlier, the amount of money you save on gas and maintenance cost alone will be able to cover the expenses for GPS tracking services. Besides, finding a reliable and accurate GPS tracker with great GPS tracking solution services at an affordable price is really not that hard at all; the average monthly cost can go as low as $69/month. What you need to do is make sure the GPS tracking solution provider you opt for is using a web-based interface with reliable mapping sources such as Google and Microsoft to enable you to track vehicles easier. With web-based interface, you can simply track vehicles using any computer with internet access; you don’t have to install any software at all and the solution will work out of the box.
By: Alice Douglas
