Saturday, November 18, 2006

Latest in GPS vehicle tracking

In the latest post from Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends it talks of a new truck tracking technology:

'Now, European companies in Ireland and Spain are using an integrated solution for managing produce transport fleets. So far, this integrated fleet-management system is used by about 800 trucks. And if this is an efficient way to manage trucks, even the creators call it 'a big-brother style solution.Here is how the software developed for the Cold-Trace project works according to IST Results:

Where in the past fleet managers have relied on calling drivers to find out where they are or to check if a pick-up or drop-off went ok, the Cold-Trace system gives them the information for the whole fleet on a PC screen. A 'black box' in each truck is connected to a server in the fleet manager’s office via a GPRS connection, while each driver has a standard PDA. GPS location data and information from sensors placed around the vehicle are all fed into the black box, and from there fed back to fleet headquarters.'

For more information about this project and its future applications, the business case "Cold-Trace: a Mobile-based Traceability Solution Rendering Fleet Management more Effective" (PDF format, 8 pages, 277 KB)

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