Sunday, June 27, 2010

5 common uses of GPS tracking

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/Va5Qt)
by Greg Bartlett

GPS tracking devices are extremely helpful to both families and businesses. Some first-time GPS shoppers may not understand what all can be done with this exciting technology, so here are 5 common ways that GPS trackers are used by today’s businesses and consumers.

[caption id="attachment_5061" align="alignright" width="284" caption="5 Common Uses for GPS Tracking"][/caption]

Protecting your family

GPS tracking can be used to track those who are most important to you: your spouse and kids. This can be done either through cell phone trackers, or dedicated devices that can be placed on your family members. These devices, like most GPS trackers, almost always come with software or access to a secure website that allows you to see where your family members are.

Preventing car theft

GPS car trackers can be easily placed in a discreet place in your vehicle so that you can always keep track of where it is located using the tracker’s software. Many of these devices allow you to hook the tracker up to the car’s battery, so that the tracker never needs recharging. These devices have already resulted in the quick recovery of many stolen vehicles, as the police can use the tracking signal to find the vehicle’s location soon after it is reported to them.

Encourage safe driving

GPS car trackers can also be used to help teen drivers practice safe driving skills. Devices that are created for this purpose not only track the location of vehicle, but can also track the speed, and sometimes the acceleration of the vehicle. Some devices even contain a “speed cap” that will not allow the car to go faster than a speed that parents set. Since teens driving GPS tracked cars know that their driving is being watched by their parents, studies show that they often drive much safer and have fewer accidents than untracked cars.

Increasing worker productivity

In the business world, countless billions of dollars are lost every year to lost productivity. Lost productivity can be especially high with workers who travel to off-site locations to do work. They can use company vehicles for personal use, get lost on the way to jobs, and otherwise waste precious company time. GPS tracking can be used to keep these workers accountable, much like it is used to track teenage drivers. Workers who know their bosses are watching them often work better than they would otherwise, as studies repeatedly show.

Company asset protection

GPS tracking devices can also be discreetly placed on larger or transportable company assets, such as company vehicles, construction equipment, laptop computers, etc. These items often represent thousands of dollars of company money. Company laptops, of course, can contain priceless company information, records, and industry secrets that are so valuable that a company must recover them or risk the information falling into the wrong hands.

GPS tracking is a solution to many problems faced by the modern company and family, and is well worth looking into to meet these needs.

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