Posts Tagged ‘GPS’
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
Are you trying to find ways to improve your agency’s on-time performance, streamline operations and increase customer satisfaction? With shrinking budgets and a growing need for paratransit service, it can seem like a daunting task.
Check out this free webinar and learn how ITS technology can be used to manage your day-to-day challenges while improving customer service and increasing efficiency. In the webinar, our Transit Project Manager will demonstrate real-life examples of how you can save time, improve on-time performance, make easy on-the-fly schedule changes, and reduce operating costs.
Click here to watch
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
Microsoft Shuttle, which provides fixed-route and demand response service on Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington campus, wanted to take their GPS to the next level and support it with Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) software, automated communication, and data collection processes. Ultimately, Shuttle wanted to increase on-time fleet activity in order to reduce parking, single occupancy vehicles, and traffic congestion on campus.
Since implementing a GPS/AVL and mobile computing system, Microsoft Shuttle has been able to meet their response time requirements of four to ten minutes, and customer complaints have decreased. The technology helps drivers get to their destination faster, improves the collection of trip statistics, such as response times and passenger counts, and allows for better route planning.
Click here to read more about Microsoft Shuttle’s improved operations.
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
Many articles have been written about the advantages of AVL systems in fixed route transit agencies. While AVL does come with a host of benefits, including predicting next bus arrival times, lofty claims about a rider walking out their door 30 seconds before the arrival of their bus simply isn’t the case in most cities. Agencies salivate at the thought of people knowing exactly when their bus is going to arrive, but it’s important to realize that once implemented, AVL delivers predictions and not guaranteed arrival times.
The big question is why? Riders may wonder why, with all the GPS hardware and software, they can’t know exactly where their bus is every second of the day. And, why their PDA says the next bus will be at the stop in two minutes, yet they’re still standing there two minutes after the fact.
To answer this it’s important to understand how arrival predictions are constructed. First and foremost, while a vehicle may know where it is at every given second, it can’t ‘send back’ its location to in-office and online software systems every second. Not only would this incur huge costs (due to the volume of data being constantly sent), but data providers simply don’t allow it (as it would clog up their entire data network). As a result, software packages have to make an educated guess as to where a vehicle is based on the location information it does receive. Typically, vehicle location reports are sent every one to three minutes. If we assume an average vehicle speed of 12 miles/hour, this translates to anywhere from 0.2 to 0.6 miles of distance covered by the vehicle between location reports. That’s 0.2 to 0.6 miles during which the software has to ‘guess’ the vehicle’s location.
In most cases, software applications are able to predict arrival times based on a number of pieces of information:
• Last location received and speed of the vehicle
• Historical traffic and speed information for a given road section
• Distance from the target
• Current traffic information
All of this information does aid in arrival predictions, however, it will never be able to exactly predict an arrival time. Road conditions may vary from calculated values due to accidents, weather, construction, organized events, bad traffic, etc. For example, no software can predict when a vehicle in gridlock is going to start moving again. Sure, the vehicle may only be half a block from its next stop, but it may not move for an extended period of time.
Agencies looking for ‘next stop’ arrival time prediction functionality need to recognize that this information is a prediction—not the absolute truth. This holds true regardless of the software provider chosen.
Friday, August 14th, 2009
It’s true that AVL/GPS systems now come with more capabilities than ever before, like the ability to collect telemetry and other data from the vehicle, and to support richer applications. As this article points out, they also deliver route optimization and planning, and when connected to navigation, allow fleet operators to realize efficiency improvements of 15 to 20%.
Read about these and other AVL/GPS trends, as well as vendor selection tips.
Monday, August 10th, 2009
Rick Mayer installing his new system
Located in picturesque Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Island Pumping provides concrete pumping services to not only the city of Nanaimo, but all of Vancouver Island. President and Owner, Rick Mayer, founded Island Pumping in 1988. Since then, Island Pumping has seen continuous growth and expansion. Rick has been involved in the construction industry all his life and has some great experiences to share with us today.
1. Why did you decide to invest in a fleet management solution?
Before this system was in place we relied on drivers to keep track of their hours, to write down when they arrived or left a job site, and we billed by the hour. With our equipment costing $125 to $230 per hour, the minutes can add up. We were losing an average of 15 minutes per job, which translates to about $100,000 a year.
We also had some problems with security. On a couple of occasions, we found vehicles in places they weren’t supposed to be, doing jobs they weren’t supposed to be doing. Because of this, we had to implement security policies where the trucks returned to the yard each night. This wasn’t cost effective, but we didn’t have another option. With the new system, we can have trucks in different cities and there is never a need to bring the vehicle back. This saves us money on fuel, and wear and tear on the vehicles. It also allows us to be much more productive, as we are spending our time at the job site as opposed to driving.
Also, our dispatch system wasn’t at the level it could be. It took a lot of guesswork and was time consuming. Our new system lets us track the vehicles and what stage they are at in the job. Sensors feed back to dispatch and we know, for example, that the truck is pumping or washing out. We don’t have to bother the driver anymore because we always know what they’re doing.
2. What one piece of advice would you give someone considering a similar technology purchase?
Be prepared for a lot of work, and find a company that is very supportive. You need a company who will be there for you if you need to pick up the phone for help at ten o’clock at night. Once you get started on a project like this you’ve got to keep it moving forward. You need to find companies that are willing to put in that effort with you.
3. How has your organization changed since implementing this technology?
We discovered that before this system was in place, two operators doing the same job could each be using a different billing format, making it hard for customers to understand their bill. For example, say one of our operators had a problem onsite, and decided to give the customer a free wash out. They wouldn’t necessarily write that on the bill so customers wouldn’t realize they were getting a discount.
We are much more standardized now, and customers really like that. If the same scenario happened today the operator tells dispatch about the discount and dispatch issues a credit on the bill in real-time. By the time the operator prints the bill out onsite, the discount is already on the bill and the customer can see they’re getting a break. Being able to present the bill correctly in the field and instantly having that information back in the office is great. Literally seconds after the job is done, the dispatcher is able to print out the invoice and mail it. That’s a key benefit.
4. What do your customers think of the system?
Customers are enjoying the technology. It’s made us a premier choice because everything we do now looks professional. The bill isn’t someone’s chicken scratch on a piece of paper. It’s printed out professionally, it is dated and time stamped, and the customer just has to sign it.
There has definitely been a reduction in customer complaints. Now we have a reliable way of backing up our invoicing because we can pull the detailed ticket if needed. We don’t get any calls about invoicing concerns because customers know they are being billed accurately.
5. What do your drivers think of the system?
Occasionally we’ve had to assign drivers to an older truck that doesn’t have the in-vehicle computer installed yet and they’re lost! I even experienced this myself in an older truck, where I went out to a job site without any billing paperwork or anything [laughs]. With the computer in the truck, everything is right there. My stress level goes right down. I hop in the truck, print out my pre-trip, do my work, finish the job, and hit print ticket. I don’t even have to remember what time I got there!
Time-wise, drivers are probably saving at least thirty minutes to one hour per day because there is so much less paperwork. The system makes our drivers’ jobs a lot less stressful as the hassle of filing paperwork is eliminated. We actually had a field operator who came to work for us from a competitor because we were using this system.
6. Have you seen a Return on Investment? If so, how much and how quickly?
We saw a return on investment instantly. At the beginning, we had the drivers hand-write bills like they always did and then we compared them with the printouts from the mobile computer. We started finding discrepancies in time and charges right away. Sometimes they’d just forgotten to write things on the bill. We stopped using the hand written bills immediately.
We are now able to very accurately predict how much time it will take to complete a job. Customers then know what to expect. There is an industry standard to charge a minimum number of hours per job, but we have been able to eliminate this because we are much more efficient now. If everything was status quo with the economy, I expect we would be saving between $50,000 and $100,000 per year with this technology.
We also used to have two people working to dispatch job assignments. Now there is hardly enough work for one person. There is less congestion for dispatchers as they can continually send jobs to drivers to be stored on their in-vehicle computer instead of having to reach them by phone.
And finally, we’re able to expand our business. We’ve remotely located trucks in different areas, and we couldn’t have done this before. It gives us a real edge. Being able to track the equipment, where our operators are, and where they have been, all from the office gives us peace of mind that we won’t be taken advantage of. The long-term use of the technology will probably save us millions of dollars because we won’t have to invest the money into opening new offices in order to expand our business.
To learn more about Island Pumping’s technology solution, click here.
Thursday, August 6th, 2009
GPRS, 1xRTT, iDEN and EDGE are all examples of wireless networks that have revolutionized the way fleet vehicles communicate with dispatch centers. They allow managers to track vehicle position, dispatch trips, update mobile software and retrieve engine diagnostics in real time—all from the comfort of their desk. The collected information is stored in a database for future analysis and reporting with the goal of optimizing fleet operation and streamlining business processes.
Sound too good to be true? It’s not, but this freedom comes at a cost.
To communicate over a wireless network, each mobile device needs a data plan which is supplied by the network provider (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, etc). These plans are usually billed monthly and allow the mobile device to transmit a certain amount of data over the network. If a device exceeds its data limit, the network provider charges overage fees which are often quite expensive.
Originally, data plan limits were low because there were fewer applications needing wireless data and the messages being sent were small and efficient. Therefore, network providers have historically offered relatively small monthly data limits (e.g. 8MB) for a reasonable price. However, today’s users often exceed their monthly limit and upgrade to a more expensive plan. The recent advent of data-hungry mobile devices such as the iPhone have forced network providers to greatly increase monthly data limits, but they have also introduced the phenomenon of “wasted data”. Wasted data is where wireless applications are no longer designed to make messages as efficient or compressed as they can be because the new wireless plans give the illusion of a bottomless data limit. In reality, huge data plans are often reserved for consumers, while businesses are still faced with smaller limit plans for their devices. To make matters worse, fleet operations must purchase a plan for every device (usually one per vehicle), so costs add up fast.
This is where efficiency and message compression can really save fleet operations money. For example, let’s say a non-optimized wireless application transmits 10MB of real-time information to each device in a 200-vehicle fleet per month. To accommodate this data without overages, a 12MB data plan is selected at a cost of $20 per month. Now assume that an optimized wireless application can transmit the same data in only 6MB per month. The data plans can be downsized to 8MBs at a cost of $15 per month. That saves the fleet over $12,000 a year!
The obvious question is: how can 10MB of data be transmitted in only 6MB? The answer lies in the use of wireless optimization techniques to reduce network usage. These range from simple data compression to intelligent ways of reducing messaging. For example, mobile devices are often configured to send GPS updates every x number of seconds, regardless of speed. To optimize this process, it is much more efficient to send GPS at less frequent intervals when a vehicle is moving slowly or stopped. Techniques like this quickly reduce the amount of data transmitted and save money.
So what lessons can be taken away from this? The importance of choosing a wireless application that optimizes data transmission cannot be underestimated. A well optimized application can save a company thousands of dollars per year in data fees. Freedom from wires comes at a cost, but choosing the right wireless application will ensure that your company is getting the most bang for its buck.
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
Isolation is a major safety challenge facing mobile workers. During an emergency, a driver may be alone in the vehicle, incapacitated, and unable to communicate with dispatch through voice or text messages. Installing an emergency switch in your vehicles enables the driver to simply hit a button to alert dispatchers or the police to an issue. GPS/AVL can be used to instantly locate the vehicle in trouble and send help.
Friday, July 24th, 2009
When 40% of workplace fatalities result from fleet safety issues, ensuring that effective safety measures are in place is essential. Here is a six-part series outlining ways in which technology can contribute to a safer work environment.
Technology #1: Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL)
Using Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) technology, dispatchers and managers can see the precise location of their vehicles, and access real-time location information for every vehicle under their care. Combined with GPS integrated with in-vehicle devices, location information is sent back to the office where dispatchers can track vehicle movement on electronic maps, and multi-level grouping and filtering capabilities allow them to focus only on the vehicles relevant to the current situation. AVL benefits both customers and workers. Call times are reduced, the closest available workers will be dispatched immediately, and 911 responders can be sent to the precise location in case of an emergency.
