GPS Insight Blog » GEOGRAPHIC AREAS

Aug 21 2010

$90 Parking Ticket is proven ridiculous (but we still have to pay it)

Category: Arizona, Driver Accountability, GPS Insight Employees, Google Earth — rdonat @ 1:10 pm

One of our employees who drives our GPS Insight Scion in a car pool took it Saturday morning to a remote area of the desert to go for a run.

He parked off the road, on a pull-out which was nowhere near where cars drive.

He came back to this $90 parking ticket (with my name on it since it’s my car officially…):

$90 ridiculous parking ticket

So here’s how you prove that Maricopa County Sheriff’s are scrounging around for money for our broke County, using GPS Insight:

Quickly run a 3D vehicle history for the Scion for that day

Open the “Time Slider” to the first trip of the day & show just the dots (green) on the map corresponding to the drive to the first stop and 45 minute stop (yellow):

History shows the drive to go to an early AM run

Then Zoom down & see the vehicle was parked off the road itself:

Parking off the road yields a $90 ticket

Then go to Street View mode & see that it’s a paved pull-off. Why wouldn’t it be ok to park there to go for a run/ride/hike?

Did they pave it just to lure people in to give them $90 parking tickets? Thanks Deputy Thompson.

Street View shows this is nowhere near the road

I’ve paid it since it’s got my name on it, but I will definitely send a copy of the blog article to the Judge & see if we can get it refunded.

How ridiculous, though.

Even though politics and a County with financial issues trumps GPS evidence sometimes, at least you can clear the suspicion that your driver did the wrong thing.

Also, using our DriverID, you know which driver was in the vehicle at the time of the ticket so you know who to talk with, if the original got “lost.”

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking

Comments (0)

Aug 11 2010

Was that my employee that just drove by…? (or my wife?…)

Category: Arizona, GPS Insight Employees, cell phone capabilities, mobile mapping — rdonat @ 10:26 pm

My wife loves the fact that she’s a guinea pig and has a GPS tracking device in her car… (not really)

But it comes in handy really often to know where she & the kids are. This article shows how quick and convenient it is to use GPS Insight to answer real questions in a useful way, daily.

I was heading out of the office, waiting at the light to head to the store, and a car that looked like hers drove by toward our home. All the cars in Scottsdale look the same and all the windows are tinted, and we don’t have a vanity license plate I can remember (which probably is the way to know it’s my car…). I wasn’t sure if it was her heading home from somewhere or just one of the other thousand SUV’s in town.

I thought maybe she would want to turn around and grab dinner with the kids where I was going.

But I didn’t know if it was her car or not, so I pulled out my iPhone & checked the map of all our vehicles.

Within seconds, I knew it was her, thanks to the GPS Insight fleet tracking product.

Here’s how I did it in 10 seconds:

I simply refreshed the link for GPS Insight’s “Mobile Maps” then “zoomed down” to my location using the “zoom to me” button (I don’t know what it’s called, but I have an arrow pointing to it below). Clicking on the vehicle just North of the intersection shows it’s my wife’s vehicle (Nav2):

Quick map tells me it was my wife (Nav2) who just drove by

Then just to show I’m really at the light waiting to turn left, I click on the pin there (I have 2 devices in my car so both are me):

Me at the light waiting to turn left

Then I can show where the cars & the office are using Google Maps’ street view (by pressing the little orange guy shown above):

Google mobile Maps shows the intersection where I'm sitting, etc.

This isn’t life & death or even business, but gives a good illustration of how fast you can answer questions about where people are at (or perhaps which of your techs just blew a red light in front of you a second ago).

10 seconds, and you’ve got your answer.

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, iPhone map, mobile mapping

Comments (1)

Jun 05 2010

Quantify IRS Taxable Mileage now with GPS Insight!

Category: California, Reporting, Reports — rdonat @ 12:09 pm

We added some functionality to our product to help a customer with a recent IRS reality:

Personal usage of take-home vehicles is taxable as income.

Now it’s pretty easy to quantify just how much of that usage is taxable using GPS Insight.

We have a new way to choose which hours of the day for several reports, to include the drive time summary (down to 5 minute levels):

New Time Selection capability within GPS Insight Reports

So when you run a month-long report with the default (00:00 through 00:00), which is what we used to allow (just a full day, not just certain hours of the day), you would get this:

Run a GPS Insight Drive Time Summary for All of May

This shows 193,887 TOTAL miles

Now run it for JUST personal hours (this would vary based on your company’s schedule of course):

Choose your exact hours for the report

The options allow you to specify the time “band” (e.g. 7PM until 5AM in this case) as well as whether to include or exclude trips which happen only partially within that time. Also, you can apply this to EVERY day or just the start/ending days by clicking “Apply Each Day.”

We will soon have a 3rd “split trips” option which literally split activity in half at the exact time you specify — e.g. if you say 19:00 and a trip starts at 18:00 and ends at 21:00, it will only report 2, not 3 hours & the mileage of those 2 hours.

Additionally, there will be weekend support as well, which will help quantify personal usage (although we already do this in our odd-hours/weekends report.

Here is the result of that particular “personal hours” report:

Quickly determine how many miles need to be taxed

The personal usage miles, based on the 7PM-5AM filter are 29,074 for May, 15% of total miles driven.

A) you may want to curb this usage, since it’s costing your company money for fuel & wear and tear

B) you need to report this as income if it fits the IRS’s definition, and avoid putting your employees in a bad position of owing taxes if/when you/they are audited.

The IRS just announced an audit of all State of California take-home vehicles, reported by Government Fleet Magazine:

IRS is auditing California take home vehicle usage

Here is the link to that article.

Be prepared! Start quantifying your vehicle usage. Also, know that GPS Insight stores 3-5 years of your data, so an 18 month audit will take you no time at all to complete. Good luck with most other GPS providers which only give you 3-6 months of data. If you want that data, they will usually charge you thousands of dollars for archived data requests. Not us though…

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking

Comments (1)

Apr 20 2010

Why I hate Microsoft (or why resetting your Ford Sync GPS is a bad idea)

Category: Availability, California, GPS Insight Employees, GPS Navigation, Google Earth, Routing, competition — rdonat @ 10:49 pm

Obviously I am pretty dependent on GPS for just about everything when it comes to getting around [also for money...].

I have 3 GPS Navigation devices with me when I drive my car (factory installed, Garmin, & my iPhone) so I never print directions any more.

So, on the way out to Long Beach a couple weeks ago, my family and I took our 3 month old car with Ford’s/Microsoft’s “Sync” system (with GPS Navigation). No directions, just our factory installed GPS navigation unit.

Just outside of town it crashed on us. I figured out how to do a factory reset and get it back up & running.

Here’s the point: AFTER RESETTING IT, I FORGOT TO TELL IT “FASTEST” & NOT “SHORTEST” when optimizing our route. DOH!

We took the 10 out to LA area, but then it took me through some really sketchy, slow-moving areas.

On the way home, I thought about it, & realized I needed to change my GPS setting to FASTEST from SHORTEST.

I was curious how much longer it took me time-wise to get there than to get back, so I ran a 3D history report & saw very quickly that it was twice as long (60 vs. 30 minutes):

Run a week long history for our trip to/from Long Beach

Slow, direct route vs. Fast, indirect route

All I had to do is look at the 2 points where the route deviates then converges again, and compare times and distances:

Where I took a GPS dictated "dumb turn"

The times/mileages are:

Going there: 17:47 & 4571.6 miles to 18:53 & 4602.5 miles

Coming back: 10:26 4618.8 miles & 10:58 & 4656.3 miles

Doing the quick math, it took 31 miles & 66 minutes there the “short” way, & 37.5 miles & 32 minutes (half as long) the “long way.”

So to save 6.5 miles, I wasted 34 minutes of my life, praying we didn’t get car-jacked. At least if we did, I would know where the car went…

Anyway, I thought of this the other day & was curious just how much extra time it took us because of that one GPS setting on my (Factory Installed — not GPS Insight…) navigation device.

Because I track that vehicle, it took me about a minute to figure it out using GPS Insight.

Oddly enough, while I was writing this, my new Microsoft Windows 7 box crashed Google Earth as well. It knew I was badmouthing Microsoft. Sooner or later, all things Microsoft eventually crash.

I’m really glad we don’t run our systems on Microsoft products.

I just checked and our two “primary” servers which our customers rely upon (with lots of auxiliary and backup servers, of course) have been up for two years to two years & 3 months:

GPS Insight servers run for years without incident

I’m glad most of our competitors run Microsoft though…

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Navigation, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, microsoft, system availability

Comments (0)

Mar 27 2010

Useful But Somewhat unknown SMS capability

Category: California, Google Earth, Vehicle Tracking, cell phone capabilities — rdonat @ 11:26 pm

We have an SMS query capability which allows you to see the driving distance between a vehicle & an address, a landmark, or another vehicle.

It is documented at http://support.gpsinsight.com/wiki/support/sms_query_documentation under “Driving Distance.”

You just text “gps [vehiclename] distance [address | landmark | vehicle name]

It just came in handy for me while my family & I were driving in California. I mentioned we were close to our office and my wife asked how close it was [we drove right past... We're going on vacation this week].

I didn’t know the exact name of the landmark we have for it (GPSI – LA) so I just SMS’d our 477-477 (GPS-GPS) short code with “gps nav2 distance gpsi” — nav2 is the vehicle we were in. The return SMS told me the list of valid landmarks meeting “GPSI” — GPSI – LA was the one I needed so I sent it again, & it showed that I was 12.1 miles away, a 25 minute drive:

Use GPS Insight SMS Queries to see how far it will take you to drive somewhere

We got close — within 4 miles of the office. But I’m on vacation, so we just kept on going…

Driving by close to the GPS Insight LA Office in City of Orange, CA

So close:

Driving by the office on the way to vacation

Great way to show how useful SMS Queries are for our customers though — they are an optional, but highly useful capability. We use them ALL THE TIME ourselves.

Click for more information on our GPS Vehicle Tracking Mobile Access.

Rob.

Tags: cell phone capabilities, gps distance, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, sms query capabilities

Comments (1)

Mar 15 2010

Finishing the Atacama desert race in Chile

Category: Chile, Google Earth, People Tracking, TT-1900 — rdonat @ 2:33 pm

Keir finished the Atacama Crossing “4 deserts” race — 250 km across the Chilean desert.

We tracked him using a GPS Insight TT-1900, and here is the track of his entire journey:

GPS Track of Keir Oxley finishing a 250 km race in Chile

Here is a picture of him crossing the finish line:

Picture of Keir Oxley finishing a 250 km race in Chile

He finished in 64:13:23

Congratulations Keir!

Rob.

Tags: 4 deserts race, Chile, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking system, Keir Oxley

Comments (0)

Mar 12 2010

Keir is still racing across the desert in Chile, tracked by GPS Insight

Category: Chile, Google Earth, People Tracking, Skiing, TT-1900 — rdonat @ 7:07 pm

Keir is still hiking across the harsh Chilean desert as we speak, tracked with a 5.9 oz. satellite tracker in his pack.

Keir hiking across the Chilean desert

Not to be outdone, I covered 40 miles today in the harsh wilderness myself, with only the assistance of 20 ski lifts, gravity, 2 skis and a couple of beers:

Ski tracking in Deer Valley at Park City UT

Just kidding, obviously a lot harder to walk 20-some miles across the desert than ski around a bunch. Maybe I should invite Keir next time…

Rob.

Tags: Chile, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, Race the Planet, Skiing, TT-1900

Comments (0)

Mar 12 2010

40 hours into the Atacama Crossing “Race the Planet” race in Chile

Category: Chile, Miscellaneous, People Tracking, TT-1900 — rdonat @ 7:56 am

Keir is doing well, in 112th place (out of 127 left in the race), and there are a LOT of people who have dropped out.

112th out of 127 left in the race

The site says he has raced for just shy of 40 hours. We are tracking him every hour with a GPS Insight TT-1900.

I ran a track like this:

GPS Track of Keir across a Chilean desert

And see where he’s gone (roughly — we update once an hour):

GPS Track of Keir across a Chilean desert

This shows 94.2 miles, but it’s been more than that, since he’s not racing in a straight line.

Good luck Keir! He’s got 1 more 25 mile day, then a 50 some mile day tomorrow to complete this race, his second Racing the Planet race.

Rob.

Tags: Chile, gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking, Keir Oxley, Racing the Planet, TT-1900

Comments (0)

Mar 09 2010

Tracking Keir across the desert in Chile

Category: Chile — rdonat @ 2:14 pm

My Brother-in-law Keir Oxley is at it again, doing another “Racing the Planet” 126 mile extreme race through the desert in Chile (his blog is available here).

Last time we tracked him through the Sahara Desert.

They are raising money for earthquake victims. Again we are tracking him using a TT-1900, which weighs 5.9 ounces, and reports world-wide, every hour.

So far he has gone 22 miles (we show about 19 since the tracking device only transmits once an hour and he’s not traveling in a straight line):

Keir traveling across the Chilean desert (Atacama crossing)

I’ll try to keep the site updated with tracking screen shots.

Good luck Keir!

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking

Comments (0)

Feb 21 2010

Better GPS Tracking than EZ-1000’s for Skiing

Category: Arizona, EZ-1000, GPS Navigation, Garmin Integration, Google Earth, People Tracking, Skiing — rdonat @ 10:14 pm

I took my boys (7 & 9) skiing (snowboarding they correct me every time…) up to Flagstaff AZ this weekend.

I brought my Garmin Edge 705 (a Garmin for bikes, basically) & put it in my coat pocket to get a really good feel for where we went during the weekend. It logs every 10 seconds for eventual upload (vs. once a minute in real time for the EZ-1000 I brought along as well).

Garmin EDGE 705

They are really nice, and we don’t sell them — I bought mine at the bike shop. [We do sell Garmin's for vehicles and can integrate them with our GPSI-4000 GPS tracking solution though...]

The Garmin is an optimist, and thinks I ran up all those hills & burned 5248 calories in the process (had I brought the wireless heart monitor it would have known better):

Garmin's interpretation of my Skiing with my kids

This is a great image of GPS Insight vs. Garmin (bear in mind we are an “ACTIVE” tracking system whereas the Garmin is “PASSIVE” and needs you to upload the data eventually):

GPS Insight vs. Garmin for ski tracking

The “pins” are EZ-1000 points [every minute while in cell coverage, which is spotty on the mountain]. The yellow circles are Garmin points (a LOT more of them).

Here is the Garmin unit track of where we went (and where I remembered to turn the unit on…):

Skiing at Snowbowl in Flagstaff AZ

It’s nice to have that for sports usage. But if you want to track your vehicles in real time, that’s not an option — you need an active tracking solution like GPS Insight. Both are great products — just for entirely different needs.

And here are my cold kids. Lots of snow this weekend, and way colder than they’re used to living in the desert.

Rob's kids in their cold-weather snowboarding attire

Rob.

Tags: gps fleet tracking, GPS Tracking, gps vehicle tracking

Comments (0)