With the advancing growth of GPS systems and web services, such as Outage Central that provide comprehensive outage links, severe weather alerts, and outage news to emergency resource personnel, utility companies are turning to online technology to help them tackle their biggest challenge – reducing outage times.
When there’s a power outage the number one priority for a utility company is to restore power, and there are two very important reasons for this.
The world of fleet management moves fast. The demand for accurate reports on fleet performance puts pressure on fleet managers to have their finger on the pulse at all times. Do you feel like you’re in touch with all the moving parts of your fleet? Do you worry you’re not doing enough to keep upper management informed of the positive work you’re doing to improve ROI?
Studies have shown that the top concerns facing fleet managers, including operations, equipment and fleet services managers, is inadequate reporting of fleet activity. Why?
Scheduling employees is a full-time job for many businesses, organizing staff to accommodate the needs of the business and the changing circumstances of workers.
It needs to be flexible enough to allow for last-minute changes, whether it’s a staff member calling in sick or being called away on an emergency, or clients requesting a variation to their normal service, such as moving it to a different day, time or location.
Then there are the public holidays, like Thanksgiving and Labor Day, which need to be worked around and allowed for, sometimes weeks or months in advance.
Benefits of good worker scheduling
Do you worry what your drivers are doing when they’re out on the road? Do you find it hard to measure how efficient your drivers are? Are you concerned they’re breaking laws and exposing the company to fines or penalties?
Driver compliance software (DCS) can help you manage remote workers without needing to be looking over their shoulder every minute of the working day. DCS is about keeping your fleet legal, safe and profitable by providing clear guidelines to your drivers about what’s expected, both from government (DOT) regulations and company policies.
It’s commonly known that the Gordons have racing in their blood. The whole family has been a familiar face on and around the race circuits of America. Back in 1990, Robyn Gordon was the first female driver to win outright at the Baja 1000, along with her dad “Baja Bob” and brother Robby. Now in 2010, on the 20th anniversary of that historic occasion, Robby will try to repeat history by winning the grueling Baja 1000 but this time with a bit more technology in tow.
For the Baja 1000 this year NASCAR champion Robby Gordon is being followed closely, very closely, by hundreds of fans. No they’re not running hard to keep up with him on the track; they’re doing it from the comfort of their own home.
Thanks to the live GPS fleet tracking software, Telogis Fleet, fans can monitor his every twist and turn through the torturous Baja 100, starting in Ensenada on November 18, 2010.
By December 2010, CSA 2010 will affect all commercial vehicle fleets in the U.S. It has been progressively rolled out throughout 2010 and is designed to target unsafe fleets, intervening where appropriate to improve safety standards.
Fleets that will be affected by CSA 2010 are those with vehicles that:
- Weigh more than 10,000lbs and travel interstate (across state borders)
- Deliver HAZMAT (hazardous materials)
CSA is an initiative by the FMCSA and introduces a new enforcement and compliance model that allows FMCSA and its State Partners to contact a larger number of carriers earlier in order to address safety problems before crashes occur.
There are three main areas that constitute CSA 2010:
When it comes to developing GPS tracking software there’s one criteria that’s more important than anything else – quality. It’s great to have feature-rich applications but if the software is prone to faults, inaccuracies or errors then it’s no good to the driver or the fleet manager.
In fact, poor quality software is usually the number one cause of user frustration. There’s no quicker way for a software company to alienate its users than by delivering a painful user experience.
A recent study by a Californian task force highlighted that your Garmin or TomTom is not as safe as you think it might be.
GPS systems were listed as one of the top ten items stolen from cars and this is backed up by regular news reports that feature GPS systems being stolen by car thieves.
Obviously it’s not a welcome sight to come back to your car and find a window smashed and your precious GPS system nowhere to be seen so what can you do to minimize the chances of having your GPS system stolen, and how is GPS actually reducing vehicle crime?
Best ways to prevent GPS system theft
The San Diego-based task force that conducted the study concluded with some recommendations on avoiding break-ins:
How is GPS tracking helping make mines safer?
There’s no disputing that mining is a dangerous industry. While safety standards have improved, the Chilean mining disaster of 2010 has shown that things can go horribly wrong. Those miners in Chile enjoyed a lucky escape but only after a massive international rescue effort that took almost two months.
Mining dangers include anything from carbon monoxide poisoning, coal dust explosions, falling rocks, runaway carts, equipment failure to more long-term health hazards such as black lung or hearing loss.
Since the Chilean mining accident, mine safety has once again come under the spotlight, with the rescued miners promising to form a mine safety group to promote safe working practices.
Other groups are also considering what needs to be done to improve the safety and wellbeing of miners on the job. A recent comment made by Derrick Sibanda, business development manager at DuPont Sustainable Solutions in South Africa (a company involved with rescuing the Chilean miners), stated that “…preventative rather than reactionary measures should be prioritized and the government should take the lead in putting in place minimum safety standards across the board.”
How is modern technology making mining a safer industry? How is GPS tracking helping managers create a safer environment by putting the emphasis on prevention rather than reactive measures?
To know its position, a GPS device relies on being able to receive signals from at least three satellites. Without going into too much detail, a GPS unit uses the three satellites to triangulate its location* on earth (learn more about how GPS systems work).
GPS satellites transmit a low-powered radio signal that travels by line-of-sight (LOS). This means it will pass through clouds, glass or plastic but will not go through most solid objects such as buildings or dense foliage. Electric interference can also affect the quality of the GPS signal, thus increasing the chance of the GPS unit not being able to receive the satellite’s signal correctly.
