Keeping track | September 3, 2001
By David Zgodzinski
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. IT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT FEATURE FOR REAL ESTATE, AND IT’S BECOMING INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT IN WIRELESS applications. Systems that let users keep track of the location of people, pets, vehicles and just about anything that moves are now rolling out.
All aboard
The Muskoka Woods Sports Resort runs a year-round operation on Lake Rosseau in Ontario, hosting campers from around the world.With a fleet of vehicles to transport guests to and from airports and train stations, the camp purchased the Onboard vehicle tracking system from AirIQ, a wireless application service provider based in Pickering, Ont., in 1999. Onboard monitors four vehicles primarily used for transporting children. Its global positioning system monitors the vehicles’ location and speed, and alerts the camp office by fax if one of the vehicles has surpassed certain preset safety parameters. It can also alert users via email, the Web or by
telephone.
“The systems are set for a speed of 115 kilometres per hour for a (maximum) period of two minutes,” said Steven Quigg, who is in charge of the camp’s vehicles. “So if the driver is pulling out to pass someone, there’s no problem, but if he or she is going a little too fast for a period of time, [Onboard] sends us a fax. There are cellphones in the vehicle, so we can contact [drivers] right away and tell them to slow down.” Knowing they’re being monitored makes drivers more safety conscious, he added.
No further
Muskoka Woods has also set boundaries across which its vehicles should not wander. And with Onboard watching, joy rides to town are a thing of the past. But the technology has also helped eliminate a few other problems.
“Once we dispatched a vehicle to pick up some campers from overseas who were taking the train to the Gildwood station,” said John McCauley, executive director of Muskoka Woods. “The driver missed the turnoff for the station and soon crossed over the preset boundary line for the system. We called the vehicle and told the driver he had missed the turn and explained how to get back to the station. If we hadn’t been alerted, the car would definitely have been late to pick up the guests.”
The system has also proved useful in winter, when vehicles are driven in hazardous conditions on remote roads. “We had one girl who was driving by herself in one of the vans and it broke down,” McCauley said. “She was a bit disoriented and didn’t know where she was. The system told us her position right away and we dispatchedsome help, knowing exactly where the vehicle was located.”
In addition to monitoring location and speed, the Onboard system allows users to enable or disable a vehicle remotely, as well as operate door locks. Don Simmons, AirIQ’s CEO, said the principal customers for the Onboard system are fleet operators such as car rental and trucking companies.
Other uses
AirIQ is a private company with a number of corporate investors. One of these is a systems integrator called Veridian, based in Arlington,Va., which designs and implements applications for large organizations like NASA, the U.S. Air Force and the CIA.
Veridian has developed a product called VeriTracks to monitor the location of parolees after they have been released from prison. A system similar in operation to that used by Muskoka Woods,VeriTracks employs Global Positioning System (GPS)tracking devices, which have shrunk in both size and cost.
The VeriTracks system can track preset zones that apply to each individual. If a parolee is not allowed to leave a state, or travel in certain neighbourhoods, the system can warn authorities if those zones are violated.
But the real power of VeriTracks comes from integration with police crime report and parolee location data. According to a study by the National Institute of Justice, 74 per cent of American parolees who violate probation are convicted of new crimes committed while on probation. By linking new criminal activity databases with parolee tracking information, VeriTracks can show police if parolees were in the vicinity of a crime scene at the time of the offense. It’s a powerful tool to help police spot potential suspects.
“This is the most interesting project I’ve ever worked on,” said Brian Moore, VeriTracks’ project manager. “It’s a combination of technologies and data systems and it’s got the potential to do a lot of good.”
The first commercial VeriTracks system has been purchased by the state of Florida, and according to Moore, “currently about 500 individuals are being monitored and information from 19 police forces in the Tampa Bay area has been integrated into the system. The logistics are challenging and the state is starting off slowly to work out the details.
“Within 18 months, Florida hopes to use VeriTracks to monitor the areas where 50 to 75 per cent of crimes are committed. Eventually the goal is to have 75 per cent of Florida probationers-tens of thousands of individuals-monitored by tracking devices. VeriTracks will monitor crime information from over 600 law enforcement agencies in the state.”
Moore added the state has been laying legislative groundwork to help pay for VeriTracks. “Florida has been innovative. The legislature passed a law that will require the individual being monitored by the system to pay a fee that goes towards the cost of the monitoring.”
VeriTracks could prove so effective in balancing public safety with the ability to release prisoners early that a greater number will eventually be put on parole, he said.
The downside
But some argue the Big Brother implications of a system like VeriTracks can also be frightening. When asked if there might be potential legal roadblocks, such as constitutional right-to-privacy suits, Moore said “criminals have already givenup their rights. But when their parole time is up, the device comes off.”
While the benefits of locating vehicles lost on back-country roads are clear, society will have to determine its comfort level with tracking systems that will soon play a larger role in our lives.
W E B T R A C K I N G
AirIQ http://www.airiq.com
Muskoka WS Resort http://www.muskokawoods.org
Veridian http://www.veridian.com
