An alert from one of the local news stations popped up on my screen last week asking readers to be on the lookout for a stolen unmarked police cruiser. My first instinct was to warn family and friends that an impersonator was out on the loose. Once I got the word out, I started analyzing the situation and thinking about vehicle tracking. I wondered why the local police department did not equip their cruisers with some sort of GPS tracking device which could have allowed them to locate the vehicle quickly without putting the public at risk. I have some experience with GPS tracking in a couple of different fields and decided to do some research on patrol car GPS devices.
My first experience with vehicle tracking devices came when I started installing them for local dealers that sold vehicles under risky loan terms. These devices are relatively simple and amount to the equivalent of a basic cell phone with a GPS chip that can be hard wired to a car battery. They can be installed as a passive device that monitors the car but can also be wired to interrupt a starter so that a vehicle can be disabled. Many dealers use these to track vehicles if they need to repossess them and many times they will set a geo-fence to make sure the car is not able to go across the border and disappear forever. The devices range in price but can usually be purchased for $50-150 for the device and come with a $5-10 monthly monitoring charge.
While the GPS monitoring devices used by car dealers are inexpensive, they do not provide many benefits when it comes to managing a company owned fleet of vehicles. There are devices on the market that will provide fleet tracking and management — my current position in the trucking industry has given me exposure to a few of them. The large truck devices I work with currently are provided by Omnitracs and cost around $2,000 for the equipment and come with a monthly charge of $20-40 depending on the services selected. These devices provide GPS tracking and management of trucks in the fleet along with a wide array of other trucking related software and services. They also provide fault monitoring and diagnostics as they are hooked directly to the ECM inside the truck. The main benefit of the GPS portion of the equipment is that the trucks can easily be tracked to allow route planning and customer updates. In the case of loss prevention, the trucks can be tracked if they are stolen or abandoned by drivers.
The Omnitracs devices and similar systems are much more expensive than the first example but they do offer an array of advanced features. There are alternatives on the market such as the Delphi Connect devices from Verizon Wireless that are used in pickup trucks and other support vehicles in trucking. These devices can be purchased for about $100 for the basic version or $200 for the LTE Mobile Hotspot version. Monthly charges are very affordable at only $5 per device in addition to a standard Verizon Wireless plan and provide live GPS tracking along with historical GPS data through the Delphi portal. They also provide a view of the current vehicle status with items like odometer and fuel level. Lastly, they can be set to monitor faults; if the driver sees the check engine light pop up, the maintenance team can be notified. These devices are very beneficial in keeping track of the vehicles along with the secondary benefit of discerning issues remotely without having to send a road tech to the scene.
We have established that the technology is out there and there are a number of ways it can benefit a police department. In the example above, it would allow the police to quickly recover the vehicle and arrest the thief without putting the public in danger of an impersonator that may be running around. A similar case recently occurred in Sacramento, where a thief stole an unmarked police car and actually dragged one of the officers when he tried to stop him. Using GPS, the dispatchers were able to locate the vehicle quickly and arrest the perpetrator. Another benefit to the trackers comes in the form of efficiency. Many departments use radios to reach out to available officers and ask them to go to a possible crime scene, but this can be improved if the dispatch team is able to view the location of the patrol cars and immediately find and assign the closest car. Officer safety is also a large benefit of the trackers as dispatch can locate an officer that may be incapacitated and send someone out to assist them in cases when they are not able to radio back to ask for help. Many of the smaller benefits like engine diagnostics could also be put in use to streamline operations.
Since the devices are available and inexpensive, what is preventing the police departments from adopting them?
Police officers cite privacy as one of the main concerns. During negotiations for tracking devices in Boston in 2013, many of the officers showed concern for being watched by their superiors along with the potential for the devices to be hacked by criminals. Officials from the Boston Police stated their system would run on a private network which should prevent hacking over the internet. This should prevent most criminals from seeing the data. However, recent hacks of similar devices show that some of their concerns may have a foundation. Officers and their unions are also concerned about scrutiny for taking breaks or driving over the speed limit, but officials argue that the benefits of knowing exactly where a car is located in the event of an emergency are greater than small inconveniences that the officers may experience.
Cost is another big factor when it comes to police departments as many are limited on what they can purchase and some would rather spend the money on additional personnel. The Delphi system demonstrated above is very cheap to run but may not offer all of the features needed for a police department. Looking at systems that are designed for police departments, like the one proposed in Ozark, Missouri, we find that the systems designed for patrol cars have an initial cost of $180 per car and a recurring yearly software cost of about $300 per car. While a fleet of 40 patrol cars like the one mentioned in the article may have a first year cost approaching an additional patrol car, the efficiency introduced by trackers could mitigate the need for one, alongside all of the other mentioned benefits. Some departments may balk at a $480 first year cost per patrol car, but many of them are spending upwards of $5,000 per car to install launchers than can shoot trackers at fleeing cars. While some may decry the use of these launchers citing civil liberty concerns, I believe they can be very beneficial in preventing dangerous high speed chases. In the same vein, I believe that if the police GPS trackers are tested to be reasonably secure they should be installed and will make our communities safer in cases where a patrol vehicle may be stolen.
[Photo Credit: Highway Patrol Images/Flickr/CC BY 2.0]
The post Tracking Stolen Police Cars appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
from The Truth About Cars http://ift.tt/Jh8LjA
Put the internet to work for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment