Jan 21 2009

Golf cart tracking (part 2)

Category: Arizona,CUSTOM APPLICATIONS OF GPS INSIGHT,Golf,Google Earth,Miscellaneous — rdonat @ 9:53 am

We started working with a well respected expert in the golf industry, Bill Yates — founder of Grey Town Golf, LLC. They are a golf management company in Pebble Beach, CA. Bill’s expertise is consulting to courses about how to improve the pace of play.

Based on his interest in a prior blog article we have begun work on a system for using GPS technology to improve the pace of play as well as maintenance and service at golf courses by tracking the various types of golf carts.

Starfire in Scottsdale was nice enough to work with us on this project, and here are 5 of their carts for yesterday:

Tracking golf carts with GPS Insight

Here is that activity as a movie:


GPS Insight movie of golf carts throughout the day

I need to remember how to embed that video into the blog, but for now it will open up in a new window.

This sample data allows us to now write alerts, reports, and maps which will allow Bill and Grey Town Golf to improve their pace of play system significantly.

Here is a “current status” dashboard view of the course and the 5 carts we’re tracking currently:

GPS Insight golf management console

We look forward to bringing this system to market in early 2009 (and maybe I’ll get some time to test it out on the course myself…).

Rob.

Oct 18 2008

Tracking Golf Carts

Category: CUSTOM APPLICATIONS OF GPS INSIGHT,detecting unauthorized vehicle usage,Golf,Google Earth,GPS Insight Employees,Miscellaneous — rdonat @ 2:08 pm

We got a call today from a golf club that wants to track their carts in order to make sure the pace of play isn’t getting too slow.

Since we have several options available from a hardware standpoint, we can help with this requirement, and will probably put together (I unconsciously typed that as “putt ogether”) a golf-centric offering.

They want to be alerted when more than 2 carts are “bunched up” on a tee box, which indicates a ranger needs to go out to speed one foursome up.

Tracking Golf Carts

Using GPS Insight, we can easily define the tee boxes, and alert/report on too many carts within a single boundary, and are happy to develop reports to help the golf industry to speed up the pace of play.

GPS Insight has a pretty golf-centric staff, so this is an interesting project we will get involved with. For a typical golf course, it will cost $350 per cart, and $32.95 per month — roughly $1.50 a day on a lease. Since the golf industry works about every day, they’ll get their money’s worth. Also, since this line of “non-diagnostic” hardware can be turned off seasonally, there will be no activation/deactivation fees for them. If this helps squeeze one more foursome in per day, that’s instant ROI, plus greater customer satisfaction from a day at the course which actually moves along at a 4 hour pace.

More on the ROI — out on Scottsdale, $175 a round isn’t uncommon. Let’s assume it’s only $50. Times 4 players, that’s $200. for 75 carts (typical), the cost is $112.50. That’s a 77.5% return on investment, PLUS they know where the carts are at all times, can analyze usage patterns, compare cart usage to actual rounds paid for (sorry all you friends of the cashier who don’t pay for your carts or rounds)… Also, we can put an alert/report in there to identify how long a cart’s run since being recharged or refueled in order to keep customers happy (no more getting stranded on the 15th with a dead cart). You can also find out who is not following the “cart path only” rules when they apply.

There are plenty of courses here in Scottsdale for us to test this new capability:

Tracking Golf Carts with GPS Insight

Plus, our favorite, you can use text messaging to find out how far away the beverage cart is…

Just don’t ask us to track your golf ball.

Rob.

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