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Fleet management systems have been around a while and have become so complex that it has evolved into Field Resource Management. This article explores 5 reasons why all fleets need at least a basic Field Resource Management system.
A lawsuit was filed last week against the FBI and US Dept. of Justice by Yasir Afifi for secretly hiding a GPS tracking device under his car without a warrant. The lawsuit says this was a violation of his civil rights. The lawsuit was filed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Afifi’s behalf. They are seeking compensation, an injunction, and a decision saying that any use of GPS tracking devices without a warrant in the US is unconstitutional.
Afifi is a 20 year old college student who lives in Santa Clara, CA. He claims he has not been involved in any suspicious activity, and there is no way the FBI would have a valid reason for placing an inconspicuous GPS tracking device on his vehicle. He is now suing the FBI for secretly placing the GPS tracking device on his car.
Walmart (NYSE: WMT) is the most searched business by Americans with a GPS navigation device. More people search for Walmart on their GPS than any other business in the USA, according to a recent survey by TeleNav, one of the nation’s biggest wireless location-based services providers. As a matter of fact, the GPS system searches for Walmart were more than double the number of searches conducted for second place, retailer Target.
According the the TeleNav GPS System Study, the most searched businesses in the US are:
1. Walmart
2. Target
3. Starbucks
4. Best Buy
5. Chase Bank
he recent 8.9 magnitude earthquake in Japan will not only leave an everlasting impression on the country, but globally as a result of the quake’s effect on the rotation of the Earth and GPS coordinates, according to Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The intense earthquake that struck Japan on March 11, 2011, has accelerated Earth’s spin – which has has shortened the length of Earth’s day by a fraction and shifted how the planet’s mass is distributed.
The earthquake shortened of the length of the 24-hour day by 1.8 microseconds. Aftershocks in Japan could continue to result in further changes to GPS coordinates, the length of day, and the shifting of the Earth’s axis.
Another criminal caught by GPS! Recently in Pennsylvania, a man stole an ambulance out of the driveway of a local hospital. Shortly after, he crashed it. The police said the man, Michael Wilson, crashed the ambulance after driving it away from Highlands Hospital. The vehicle sustained damages to its front bumper, side mirror and part […]
GPS tracking devices are often used to catch employees doing things they aren’t supposed to be doing. “We’ve seen several instances where managers had no idea what their employees were up to during work hours,” according to FieldLogix, an industry leading GPS fleet tracking system. One afternoon in San Diego, CA, a driver for Artic […]
Ex-police officer pleas ‘no contest’ to stalking ex-girlfriend with a GPS tracking device aka misdemeanor unlawful use of an electronic device.
GPS tracking system data used to catch and convict home robbery suspect in Temecula, CA
Sometimes criminals get away with burglaries, and sometimes they don’t – not when there is solid GPS tracking evidence.
On Christmas Day 2008, Shawn Michael Smith burglarized a home in Temecula, CA. At the time of the robbery, Smith did not realize the work truck he was driving had a GPS tracking device installed under the hood.
During the police investigation, someone in the neighborhood told the police that a tow truck that had not been seen before in the neighborhood was parked near the house during the burglary. The detectives were able to determine which towing company owned the tow truck.
Police learned that the tow truck was outfitted with a GPS tracking device. Police then subpoenaed the GPS tracking system records and determined that the truck was, in fact, parked in front of the home during the time of the burglary. Shawn Michael Smith was the only driver of the vehicle.
Looks like wasting time sitting in traffic is going to be a thing of the past, thanks a recent update to Google Maps Navigation for Android. Now, if you’re driving and there is traffic up ahead, the Google Maps Navigation app will automatically route you around the congested roads. Appropriately, the new feature is called “Route Around.”
Route Around gives drivers the most efficient route, automatically taking real-time traffic into consideration. According to Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of consumer services, “People drive more than 35 million miles a day while being assisted by Google Maps Navigation. The Route Around feature currently saves users two years of drive time every day, or about 12 million miles per year.
Prior to the update, the app had the ability to display traffic information, but you had to manually input an alternate route. Route Around replaces the old method of navigating a driver to a route that was technically the quickest, but didn’t take traffic conditions into consideration.
Recently Price Lock and Automotive Fleet partnered to conduct a survey to gain insight on businesses’ views on fuel pricing, its impact on their fuel budgets and any steps they may have taken to proactively manage volatile gas prices. The survey said the two biggest issues for fleets are fuel efficiency and lack of control over gas costs.
What’s interesting about these results is that gas prices have risen almost $.40 since the polling ended. (The survey was conducted form January 20, 2011 to February 18, 2011.) If companies were feeling the pain at the gas pump a month ago, when gas prices were much less, then they really must be concerned now.
The results of the survey showed that 99% of respondents are concerned with fuel prices in 2011. 65% of survey respondents said that they were forced to absorb higher fuel costs, but only 16% are able to pass the increased costs onto the customer.
