Rural First | Government

Is there a better way of tracking employees?

Tracking assets for construction A few years ago I owned a small route service company, Nature Scent Environmental Services, each day my employees would come into the warehouse get their route for the day and load up their business trucks. Then they would set out to take care of our customers. We had done things like this for years, and it seemed to work well. One morning one of our employees was in an accident on his way to the office. I told him to take care of himself and that I would jump in the truck and care for his customers exposing a weakness in our model that I hadn’t realized existed.

You see the company had been growing rapidly since our inception, it had started out as just my wife and me, but due to our success, we had been adding customers and employees. My employees were loyal and hardworking, and almost never took sick days. This day as I was filling in for my employee, I realized that we had grown to the point that I know longer knew where all of our customers where. This success was a good thing, but as I struggled to find customer locations, I knew this was a weak point that had to be addressed.

I decided that we needed a GPS tracking solution, but those were the early days of the internet and tech as we know it today. Mobile data networks barely existed, and AVL was prohibitively expensive, so I had our system built. It was a simple system we couldn’t see anything live it would only update over wifi when the trucks pulled back into the warehouse at the end of each day. Our goal was not to catch employees doing anything wrong; I had good employees. I just needed to make sure if someone called in sick or quit that we knew where all of their stops were and could easily fill their absence.

Free white paper on improvements to driver safety with in-vehicle GPS.

What I learned from this shocked me! Sure I could now see our customers locations, and that was invaluable, but the back and forth driving to see customers looked like a preschooler scribbling on a map. We optimized the routes our employees were driving and saw an immediate bump in the number of customers each employee could see by 30%. We were getting ready to hire another employee to keep up with demand, but with this new found efficiency we didn’t have to. Not only that but we were able to grow considerably more again without adding the expense of another salary, truck, fuel and everything else it took to make that employee satisfied.

Today we have an amazing system that allows you to manage your team from any location. Whether from your office or on the road we have the tools to make your company more profitable. Here’s to a fantastic year for your business. We would love to leverage our experience in GPS and AVL tracking to help you fill in the gaps. Whether that’s improving your employee’s safety, improving your customer impressions with on-time arrivals or adding money to your bottom line. Contact us today to for a no pressure demonstration of our GPS tracking software.

The Problem With Rural American Roadways

Rural American Roadways
America is covered by over 4 million miles of road, and 3 million of it is rural and small town routes. In addition, only 130,000 miles are under the jurisdiction of the federal government, this leaves 97% of all roads in the U.S. being managed by state and local governments. Factoring in that 65.4% of roads are paved, and the rest unpaved, and roads are often created based less on planning and more on personal interest, new and freshly paved roads will often lead to poor mapping and road systems in many rural counties. This is unfortunate because rural America is the leading provider in the U.S. for food, raw materials and manufactured products.

The United States land area amasses 3.6 million square miles, and when 97% of that is designated as rural or small town, we have an obligation to improve mapping in these locations.

Rural Mapping Issues & First Responders

These poor mapping and road planning issues have more than just an effect on moving America’s resources. It also has a major impact on the response time, and even the arrival of emergency services like police officers, sheriff deputies, EMT’s, ambulance crews and fire departments. Sadly, although it is known that these delays are great in number, it is extremely hard to pinpoint the exact amount because most cities, towns, counties and states do not measure performance in regards to overall response time. The information that is available does make it clear that something must be done. If a patient is transported to a hospital within 15 minutes of having cardiac arrest by ambulance they have a 6% chance of survival, reducing the time to 8 minutes increases this to 8% and lowering it to 5 minutes increases the number to 10-11%.

Counties In Need

One solution to the problem, other than a better plan for roadways, is manual GIS map correction by a trained GIS expert. GIS stands for geographic information system, and these experts go through and capture, store, manipulate, analyze, and manage geographical data. In this case, they make sure that what is on the map matches the roads in any given county. Take for example, the GIS experts at Rural First that take select data from each county and then verify that data against county records and other pieces of information to get the most accurate maps available. And like the solutions at Rural First, without a strong GPS software solution that utilizes this new data provided by the GIS experts, counties cannot use the level of accuracy they are provided. Working in tandem, response time is greatly reduced, insuring budgets are kept under control, time is better managed, and most importantly, more lives are saved.

Want to learn more about the GIS experts at Rural First? Watch this informational video by our own sales expert, Jeremy Smart or request a free demonstration.

911 and the Difficulties That Have Arisen

This past Sunday, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, a comedy news show on HBO, discussed a problem that Rural First has been speaking to since our inception. Emergency call centers and first responders are in desperate need of funding and new GPS tracking/GIS mapping technology. The United States makes over 240 million 911 calls every year, and the system breaks down often enough to take notice.

Like this story of GPS and GIS issues affecting 911 operators first reported by CBS46 in Atlanta, GA.

The pond Shanell Anderson drove into.

Shanell Anderson, 31, of Atlanta, GA who lost control of her SUV and drove into a local pond while delivering newspapers around 4:15 a.m. one morning. In the released 911 call, Anderson was initially calm as she told the dispatcher she was sinking into the pond while inside her vehicle. The dispatcher repeatedly asked Anderson for an address, telling the woman the information she was giving couldn’t been found in the system. Anderson attempted to repeat her location several times, each time with a more urgent tone, before finally being disconnected with the dispatcher.

After the original 911 call, the dispatcher placed another call to an unknown official, and the two worked together to try to locate the woman. In the second call, the dispatcher advised that she had already sent emergency crews to several areas with water as they tried to locate the woman.

This problem seems to be a surprisingly growing issue as GPS technology and GIS map correction for 911 departments lags behind other private entities. This is why Rural First provides affordable solutions to rural counties that otherwise could not afford them. You can watch the full episode of Last Week Tonight and the problems faced by 911 operators below.

*The following video from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) does have very coarse language. If you are easily offended, it is recommended you don’t watch.

Seven Important Facts About ELDs

On July 6, 2012 a new 2 year transportation reauthorization bill called the “Moving Ahead in the 21st Century Act” was signed into law. Many important provisions were included in this law to assist the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in reducing collisions, accidents, hospitalizations and death from fatalities that involved semis, large trucks and buses. These laws are put into place to raise the bar to operate a large vehicle on U.S. interstates, highways and roads, and hold fleets to higher safety standards.

One of the main provisions is the replacement of paper logbooks many drivers still use with electronic logging devices, or ELDs, that record a driver’s Record of Duty Status, or RODS, to make sure the driver complies with Hours of Service, or HOS, requirements. All fleet drivers and operators are required to have these devices in place before December 2017.

Here are some facts about these ELDs and how they may benefit you before they go into law at the end of 2017, and why you should get them now.

Hours of Service will be recorded automatically and in real time. No more paper log books means no human error and frees up time for drivers to do more important duties, including getting rest.
Keeps hazardous drivers off the road. Upon being pulled over, law enforcement can request up to 7 days of previous driver data to make sure they are complying with hours of service requirements.
ELDs increase efficiency. With real time reporting available to fleet managers, they can see what every driver is doing and where they are keeping everyone in check.
Less paperwork. Now fleet managers can spend more time planning loads based on hours of service requirements.
Affordability. Many ELDs solutions exist that are not cost-beneficial and actually improve budgets through less idle time.
ELDs have a great return on investment. They lower idle time, reduce fuel costs, eliminate unnecessary paperwork and makes better drivers.
Drivers focus on driving. ELDs are automated and require no input from the driver.

To find out more about ELDs requirements and what options are available visit Rural First.