MalaysiaGIS.com

Source: In-Tech, The Star

THE Global Positioning System, or GPS for short, has been in existence for a number of years. First employed by the military in its installations for strategic defence, it has since evolved beyond military use.

According to homegrown GPS and automatic vehicle location system (AVLS) specialist Ceanet Advance Technologies Sdn Bhd (www.ceanet.com.my), the technology has evolved in such a way that today, it’s being used commercially for navigation on land, sea, and in the air.

Ceanet says that GPS applications are so common these days that they can now be found on buses, taxis, security automobiles, trailers and lorries, and many others kind of vehicles.

Ceanet technical director Nor Azlan David however says that commercially speaking, GPS was originally used strictly in ship and aviation navigation, and in the survey industries.

"The first civilian application for GPS appeared about 10 years ago; it was used to help mariners navigate at sea. Subsequently, the civil aviation sector also started using GPS as a navigation system for guiding light aircraft in the skies," he adds.

Nor Azlan says commercial applications – including those used today by the land transportation and haulage industries for monitoring and tracking purposes – began to appear only about one to two years after that.

"I remember it was then that there were a lot of experiments and trials developing in places like Australia, because GPS can monitor and track vehicles in such a vast land," he told In.Tech in an interview in Petaling Jaya.

"And in the survey sector, both the government and private companies utilised the GPS to generate accurate positioning for land survey purposes."

GPS is now widely used in the commercial world focusing on two areas: security, safety and surveillance management, and fleet management, he says.

Protecting assets
Nor Azlan, whose company has been involved in AVLS since 1994, says that a GPS – in layman terms – is basically a radio-based direction-finding system.

He explains: "Think of it as radio beacons in the sky, transmitting signals that are used by a receiver on earth to locate and find direction of somebody or something."

That’s why, according to Nor Azlan, GPS is used in the security, safety and surveillance business – because it provides accurate location feedback to its users.

He says it’s common to see a GPS tracking system employed to protect assets, or more accurately, mobile assets. Essentially, he says, the three "assets" that often need to be protected are: the vehicle, the cargo, and the driver.

Of the three, the one that needs the most protection is the cargo that these vehicle carry. "Here in Malaysia, unfortunately, there’s a lot of hijacking of cargo vehicles because of the value of the cargo these fleet vehicles carry," he claims.

For instance, a consignment of cigarettes is often a target, as it could easily be worth RM2mil in the open market. "Also, there are no serial numbers on cigarettes and hijackers can easily sell cigarettes in the market at reduced prices. Invariably, there will be some who will buy them with no questions asked."

Another common target are trucks carrying semiconductor chips like microprocessors, memory chips and hard disk drives.

"These cargoes are worth millions to criminals who manage to get their hands on them."

Nor Azlan claims that the problem is so serious that there’s a trend now amongst manufacturing companies – like those in the semiconductor sector – to require transport and haulage companies to install GPS security and surveillance tracking technologies on all their fleet vehicles if they want to be part of their panel of transporters.

He concedes that while it’s impossible to completely prevent hijacking of these cargo trucks, the whole idea of using a GPS security and surveillance system is not to prevent the hijackings from happening, but rather to deter criminals from hijacking these trucks outright.

"By advertising the fact that you have surveillance technology, you could make criminals think twice about trying," he says. "But perhaps the most important point is that with a GPS surveillance and tracking system, companies have a way of knowing where and when these events take place, and can follow up quickly should there be a hijack in progress."

"You could call it an 'early warning system' that informs you of the whereabouts of the vehicle automatically," he adds.

According to Nor Azlan, the surveillance and tracking system installed by Ceanet for its clients have been so effective that none of its clients have experienced any occurrences of hijacking since doing so.

Alerting the command centre
There are a variety of ways the GPS tracking system could be rigged to provide security, safety and surveillance features.

"One way is to rig the system so that when the driver’s door is opened without him reporting in, an alarm would be generated back to the command centre. Alternatively, cargo doors could also be wired to send alarms back should these doors be opened if the driver wasn’t scheduled to stop," he explains.

Yet another method is to conduct what is known as "event-based monitoring," where events are recorded using a combination of data, like time and distance. For example, the system can be wired to record events based on a certain condition that was previously set.

"Let’s say we set the following condition: For a truck to commute from point A to point B, it would take approximately 30 minutes. If the truck misses this 30-minute 'deadline,' you could expect that something has happened.

"Following that, the command centre would request a report from the driver advising them on his status and the status of the truck," he says.

This way, it’s possible to know what the driver is experiencing, he adds.

Nor Azlan says that normally, a combination of one or more of these methods would serve to deter hijackers from attempting to commandeer the truck.

"These procedures are very thorough, and even if there were 'insiders' involved in the attempted hijacking, it would be very difficult for them to get away with it."

Thanks to the accuracy of the GPS, it could also be used to safeguard driver safety. There may be times when the driver experiences difficulty due to a variety of reasons.

"For example, in the event of an accident, the driver can activate an emergency button that in turn alerts the command centre that something has happened to the truck or driver. This way, the command centre could dispatch help to the truck that’s in trouble because it knows its exact location," he explains.

GPS for taxis
Nor Azlan notes that GPS could also be used in fleet management. "This application works particularly well for taxi companies, which often have more than 500 vehicles to manage at any one time," he says.

"Essentially, what we have is a GPS receiver connected to a control box within the taxi. The control box has a screen, which allows messages to come through. When the dispatch officer back at the command centre enters the details of a customer pickup, the message will be relayed to the taxi that is nearest to the address of the customer."

Upon answering the message, the taxi would then respond to pick up the passenger.

"This way, the fleet is managed in an orderly manner, and the customer would receive quicker service from the taxi company," he says. Nor Azlan claims that very often, taxi drivers would already have a fare, but still insist on taking another passenger in order to make a double-fare.

"With the GPS tracking system in place, this can no longer can happen as only taxis which do not have an active fare would be directed to pick up the new customer," he says.

Ultimately, says Nor Azlan, this improves taxis’ response times and overall customer service satisfaction for the taxi company, thereby benefiting the company by making it the preferred choice for customers.

The emergency security features used in fleet vehicles could also be incorporated in taxi fleet management. He says an emergency button could be installed for both the driver and the passengers so that either party could engage the button should there be an emergency.

"Let’s say there’s an road accident. The driver under that circumstance could press the button, and the command centre would know the taxi’s exact position. The same applies to passengers experiencing emergency situations," he adds.

In fact, he says that Ceanet is in the process of implementing this system with a taxi company and expects it to be online and operational sometime early next year.

Future applications
Nor Azlan says he believes future applications for GPS surveillance technology lie in exploiting the chief advantage of the GPS: The ability to report accurate positioning.

"For example, we’ve been toying around with the idea of combining the use of GPS and electronic locks," he says.

For instance, it’s possible to rig the GPS tracking system to a number of electronic locks so that the locks will only open when they are at a certain location reported by the GPS to the command centre.

"Let’s say a company’s business is to provide cash-in-transit service for banks and finance companies. You could set the locks to open only at two points in the route – one at the pick-up point and the other, at the drop-off point. Once the vehicle leaves the pick-up point, the locks are electronically locked and will not open until it reaches its destination," Nor Azlan explains.

Should there be an emergency, only the command centre can send the appropriate signal to override the locks.

He says that this concept can similarly be applied to vehicles carrying extremely valuable goods, or even vehicles carrying prisoners that are in transit between the prison and the courthouse.

Nor Azlan says that Ceanet is in the process of implementing this solution with several customers.

The reliability and dependability of the GPS tracking system make applications like this suitable.

"As GPS technology further matures, what would change is not so much the hardware but rather the development of new types of applications that exploits the technology,” he says.