GPS fleet tracking is growing in popularity as managers discover the many benefits of being able to follow their vehicles in real-time, as well as generating reports on worker activity.
But some employers worry that by tracking staff using GPS will expose their business to a lawsuit. Is it legal to use GPS to track staff?
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Situational awareness is the new buzzword among fleet managers and VPs, particularly those operating in high-pressure, dispatch situations, where trucks, drivers and other assets need to be corralled to respond to emergencies or ad-hoc jobs where little notice is given.
What is Situational Awareness?
Before we can talk about how GPS is helping create situational awareness, we first need to cover what it is. Essentially it is all about providing decision-makers (e.g. fleet managers) with the big picture, a 360 degree view of not just the fleet but other assets that need to be coordinated to respond to a new work order.
If you’re a fleet manager looking for recognition, then the NAFA Sustainable Fleet Awards 2011 (previously called the Green Fleet Awards) might be the perfect vehicle for you to earn the accolades you deserve.
Every year NAFA accept submissions from members for efforts made to make a fleet more environmentally-friendly, reducing its carbon footprint.
Every business changes over time. No business can remain unaffected by the surrounding economic environment of its competitors, its customers and changing technology.
So it’s absolutely critical that your business is prepared for change. Sadly for many businesses, change is the one thing they can’t cope with.
Change is such a challenge for modern businesses that an entire industry has been built around helping businesses deal with it. Change management consultants assist businesses to survive the growing pains of an ever-changing world.
Location, location, location – we live in age where location-based services (LBS) are becoming ever more popular as connected mobile devices become more common and consumers are demanding location-relevant results from search engines. They don’t want to know the location of every Subway in town; they just want to know the one that’s closest to them.
LBS is powered by advanced mapping engines such as Telogis GeoBase, an SDK that can be downloaded for free, and used to create any sort of application that can provide users with accurate mapping, routing and other location-based services, such as the nearest point of interest.
In a recent article Ray LaHood of the DOT mentioned that the transportation sector accounts for two-thirds of U.S. oil use and contributes about one-third of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. He then made a telling statement about the transport industry’s special obligation to minimize this sizeable carbon footprint.
His comments come on the heels of a 605-page DOT report on climate change, and if you don’t feel inclined to read it (or don’t have 3 days to study it in detail!) then here’s the basic synopsis:
If your business needs to cut costs or improve its profitability it needs positive ROI. And that’s measured in dollars and cents. It’s simple – when a business spends money on something, anything, it expects that the benefit will be greater than the initial cost – whether that means increased revenue or reduced expenses, the result is the same: a business is more profitable.
But there’s another element to managing costs or improving revenue, an element that is more subtle than straight ROI. It’s known as opportunity cost and you don’t know about it because it’s not there to measure. As they say “you don’t know what you don’t know”.
Sure it’s not fair but that’s life but at least you found this article so that’s a good start. So what is this opportunity cost that fleets are missing out on?
Are fleet managers responsible for fuel card abuse?
In a UK court case, a UK man was charged with stealing fuel from his employer, using a fuel card. The man, a self-confessed drug addict, would meet with his contact at a nearby garage paying for their fuel worth around 100 pounds ($US155) each time, and this would happen twice a day. It didn’t take long for that to translate to around $GBP10,000 ($US15,500) worth of stolen fuel before he was found out. It’s unlikely the firm will ever be able to recover the loss, a sober warning to all fleet managers who don’t monitor their fuel expenses carefully.
But you don’t employ drug addicts and you trust all your drivers. So there’s nothing to worry about?
When the So Cal area got hit by some of the worst rain storms in over a decade last week, it caused mayhem on the roads. And that created major headaches for fleet operators. So how exactly would GPS tracking improve the situation?
Wild weather hits Southern California
Described as one of the most extreme storms to hit Southern California in about ten years, the severe rain that fell last week created havoc on the highways, causing more congestion than normal and about five times as many road accidents.
This time of year it seems everyone, adults included, are paying attention to just one delivery guy – the fat man in the red suit. Where is he and when’s he stopping by to deliver those all-important Christmas presents?
But how exactly does he get round the whole world in just one evening?
