Fleet Tracking for Anne Arundel DPW Vehicles

[TinEar]

Just saw this on my newswire. My only question is why are they only doing the DPW vehicles and not public safety?
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Grey Island To Track Anne Arundel County Snowplows

News Editors

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 16, 2004--

Interfleet System to Track and Manage County's Winter Maintenance
Fleet

Grey Island Systems (TSX VENTURE:GIS) announced today that Anne
Arundel County, Md. has selected the Grey Island's Interfleet(R)
satellite-based automatic vehicle location (AVL) and data collection
system to help track and manage a portion of its road maintenance
fleets. The system will be installed on 81 of the County's snowplows
and service vehicles.

"The Interfleet system will help Anne Arundel County provide
better service to our residents and will help us manage our fleet
much more efficiently. Down the road we expect to provide real-time
data to our constituents to allow them to monitor our progress via
the Internet," said Bob Loomis, Assistant Director, Anne Arundel
County Public Works.

The Interfleet(R) system is installed at customer sites across
North America enabling fleet managers to better allocate their
resources. Using GPS technology and the internet, the system will
track the location and status of each plow truck during a storm and
identify road segments that have been serviced. Interfleet(TM) will
also capture and store data for post-service analyses to assist in
reducing the overall cost of future operations.

Christopher A. Body, Vice President of U.S. Sales and Marketing
for Grey Island said, "We are excited about this project and the
opportunity to showcase our application for Anne Arundel County. The
system uses the latest technology to provide fleet managers with the
pertinent data that they need to operate more efficiently."
<SNIP>

CONTACT: Grey Island Systems Inc.
Owen Moore, 416-348-9991
info@interfleet.com

Aug-16-2004 17:21 GMT
Symbols:
CA;GIS
Source BW Business Wire

 

[troymail]

It's to make sure they aren't all at the donut shop
or hiding in some parking lot...

Someday, it would be nice to have GPS in the
emergecny service(s) units -- that way, the system
can pick the closest unit to a call rather than hoping
the units and people are paying attention...

On the other hand, that could be interesting -- they
have to program into the system divided highway
info in great detail ... that type of thing could have
a major impact on "who is closer".

 

[maus92]

I've been noticing GPS antennas on AACo patrol cars recently - the ones with the new paint scheme...

CA
Annapolis

 

[mfn250]

If you are talking about the little round ant.. on the trunk lid, that is the wireless connection for the laptops...

 

[fourwd1]

If you are talking about the little round ant.. on the trunk lid, that is the wireless connection for the laptops...

No, that's a GPS antenna.

 

[mfn250]

I don't know where you got that the ant.. was for GPS but talking to several officers and people that should know, it is for the laptop connections. I am only posting what I know from talking to the cops.

 

[RaadMan]

Sorry fourwd1 is correct its a GPS antenna.

We used this on our Ambulance for GPS. In Ontario Canada.
I use to hear the term hockey puck antenna. I guess since they are all hockey fanatics.
Why would you mount something like that outside to connect a laptop. all wires are inside
and connected secure from the elements.

 

[kg4icg]

The Antenna on the back of AA, DCMPD, and a few other police depts aren't gps antennas, they are infact 4.9 ghz wireless antennas for the laptops in the squad cars on a secure network. They are not like the Garmin hockey pucks you are refferring to which are much thicker in profile compared to the ones mounted on some police cars.If you wonder why you see some police cars with laptops and wonder why the have no data tg in there radio system. You might ask yourself, how are they getting data then?. The answer is a 4.9 ghz secure wireless system that's been deployed.

R Collins

 

[troymail]

I concur - it's probably for the laptops. They use cell phone connections....

 

[maus92]

Verizon CDMA wireless is marketed to area Public Safety departments for datacomm, using their standard circuits - which are inherently secure. The "hockey puck" antennas are not limited to 4.9ghz - there are models that are "cut" for 800mhz. It brings up the question as to why the antennas are shaped like pucks - why not a standard whip?

 

[p-nut]

To set the record straight. I'm a Police Officer in A.A. County & the black round (hockey pocks) discs on our patrol cars are for the laptops we use. We use the Panasonic Toughbook w/ touchscreen laptops

 

[maus92]

FWIW, APD (Annapolis) patrol cars have an array of antennas on the rooftops that are used for their in-car computers. I forget who the vendor for the system is, but it is not Verizon CDMA/EVDO.

 

[Spleen]

The department I support is rigged similar to p-nut's AA County description, with "puck" antennae on the cars...

"Pucks" are commonly cut anywhere from 800MHz up to 6 or more GHz, though most people are more used to seeing those little whips on patrol cars where the department was on a 800MHz voice system with no KDTs...pucks are low-profile, rarely get ripped off the car in the car wash, and aren't affected by that peculiar static effect (I think the old-timers used to call it 'corona' or something like that....?) that would be an annoyance during analog comms but would measurably degrade digital comms...

And I don't have any numbers handy, but supposedly some of those pucks have some gain advantage over your average 1/4 wave whip...