News Analysis

Track your vehicle

GPS Tracker helps to track your moving vehicle through Google Earth or Maps, finds Vinita Gupta.

In late 2005 Vehicle Tracking System (VTS) was launched in India but it came in to action aggressively after rates of GSM and GPRS services become affordable.

BioEnable Technologies, a Biometric company is providing few VTS like GPS Tracker. GPS Tracker is a hand held device with inbuilt battery and inbuilt GPS receiver. The battery is chargeable and can be used to continuously transfer the data for eight hours. Presently the company has Crompton Greaves India, L&T, Vyapti Technologies and IAPL as their customers.

The GPS Tracker will be there with the moving vehicles which will keep on receiving GPS signals from GPS satellites. Using GSM network, the tracker will send the data to the server and the company’s software will convert those data into locations and display the same on Google Earth as moving vehicles. With these data different kind of information like the location, speed and other details will be available.

“Every customer is provided with web based login account to access the data on the gpsintegrated.com server. You can track one or more vehicles using single account. On login, our dashboard page displays important information about the vehicle like its status, max speed, motion hours, distance covered, and stationery hours. It also provides a Live Tracking link for Google Earth or Google Maps,” says Manmohan Kumar, VP Marketing, BioEnable Technologies.

He further adds, “If the customers have installed free software from Google called Google Earth on their computer, then they have to just click on the Google Earth Live Tracking link in their account and can see the complete track of the vehicle along with fantastic Google earth satellite imagery.”

The technology used in the system mainly depends upon the data- longitudes and latitudes received from GPS satellites and transfer or conversion of the same data into locations with the software and display the same with Google Earth.

A device installed in the vehicle acquires GPS signals from GPS satellites and calculates its position on the earth. This position data is sent to the gpsintegrated.com server using GPRS connection made by an integrated GSM modem using Idea cellular or Airtel SIM card (present in the tracker). This process is repeated every minute. In case GPS connectivity is not available temporarily, the device will record the position in its memory and send it later when connectivity is established. Also in case the GPS connectivity is not available for longer duration, it can send the position data by SMS to the server. In this way, the position data of the vehicle is continuously recorded by the server.

Presently BioEnable Technologies is a partner with Google Earth and Airtel. Kumar adds, “We are in talks with other service provider but the GPRS modem would be bit costly than GSM modem.”

This system is mainly for call centres (for tracking the pick up and drop cars), feet owners and courier companies to track their number of vehicles moving in the country at different times and different locations. This can be used as personal tracker also to track the family members.

According to Kumar, call centres are facing problems in dropping female employees at night and fleet owners and courier companies have been looking for a this kind of a solution for long. Hence, these companies are being targeted.

The cost of the GPS Tracker device is Rs 18,500, to which Rs 1000 is added as a onetime activation cost and registration charge in addition to Rs 500 per month for service. The company offers national roaming Airtel SIM card with the tracker.