GPS vehicle tracking

   / GPS vehicle tracking #1  

Complete Turf Care

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Joined
Mar 31, 2013
Messages
1,983
Location
South Louisiana
Tractor
2022 Kubota Grand L6060 (no loader), 2017 Kubota Grand L6060, 2011 Kubota L5740 HSTC-3, 1997 Kubota M4700
I am considering adding GPS vehicle tracking to 2 or 3 of my trucks. I have a lawncare/landscaping business, and I want to have a better handle on where my crews are throughout the day.

Does anyone have any experience with these systems?

What should I look for in a system? What should I avoid?

What is a reasonable cost per truck?

I did a search here and found lots of threads related to GPS, but none for vehicle tracking.
 
   / GPS vehicle tracking #3  
Check into smart phone apps. I have one that shows where all the phones in my family is. Cheap and works.

Chris
 
   / GPS vehicle tracking #4  
our company trucks use Trimble. They have the ability to do a myriad of things, it all depends on how much you want to spend.
 
   / GPS vehicle tracking
  • Thread Starter
#5  
All my employees have their own cell phones. I don't supply cell phones, so that's not an option.
 
   / GPS vehicle tracking #6  
Also make sure how or if you have to notify your employees that you will be tracking them and your Equipment - in todays litigious society you need to cover your bases.
 
   / GPS vehicle tracking #7  
Shadowtracker. It is used on the road-service trucks owned by a local semi-truck repair facility I work for to track their service trucks as theft prevention. Local county transit authority I also work for uses it to display real time GPS data for their city busses on their website. They are a reliable system.
 
   / GPS vehicle tracking #8  
When my daughter turned 16, my wife and I used a cheapo cell phone. I tucked it up under the dash and and wired in a car charger to keep it charged. It worked to keep tabs on her. She was a good kid, but we did catch her doing some things a few times. We used Kajeet and the service was round $8 a month. At the time there was nothing cheaper. It let you program 5 or 6 times to check the gps, and we had unlimited manual locates. Just to be clear, this is a sprint mvno geared toward kids (parents) that is a standard cell service.
Dave
 
   / GPS vehicle tracking #9  
FWIW, my cousins own a fairly large construction company. (over 100 employees) I don't know the name or cost of their system, but they have tracking units on all of the trucks and equipment, plus cameras in all of the buildings and yards. It works, but there are drawbacks. They have had numerous valuable employees to quit over the "snooping." Some of the supervisors are on a power trip. They spend way too much time calling equipment operators and truck drivers to find out, "what are you doing" or "why aren't you moving?" They want the workers to KNOW that they are being constantly watched.
Don't misunderstand me. It's their company, their equipment, their employees. But, you need to think about the benefits vs. the drawbacks of any kind of "big brother" monitoring. Some of your people probably won't appreciate it.
 
   / GPS vehicle tracking #10  
My opinion on that matter goes something like:
I don't care how good you are, they're kind enough to pay you a wage for your time. If you have such an issue with the company you work for ensuring their time and equipment are managed wisely to the point you want to quit, you deserve to have nothing and be nothing; or go do it all for yourself running your own company your own way. You are on their time and their dime, get over yourself; you are not that important...

Myself, I have more bosses than I have fingers and toes and always have someone looking over my shoulder. It's just the way things must be to collect a paycheck, so I accept it. I am on their dime and it is time they are paying for, they should get full use of it and "say" in how it is managed...
 

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