Rural First | Solutions

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.

How first responders can gain transparency in day to day operations

ambulance saving lives The challenges faced by the first response community in today’s environment of increasing drug use, of having to protect more homes and families with fewer dollars and shrinking workforce can be daunting. Thankfully, real-time remote monitoring solutions offer visibility into what’s going on when you’re not there. When managing a mobile workforce and remote assets, you need a tool, which allows you to keep tabs on all assets and personal in real time, without making a significant impact on the bottom line.

When you’re running a sheriff’s office, police station or first responders dispatch center, tracking assets, people, and places can quickly become an overwhelming task. Operating that new patrol car becomes a significant expense for any law enforcement agency, especially with the threat of rising fuel prices and expensive parts. Remote asset management with real-time information is the solution that lets you collect current information about your cars, ambulances, fire trucks, and virtually anything else used in emergency services – engine and oil temperature, flow rates, RPM, mileage, location – all increasing visibility, transparency, and control for a smoother operation. All this while you remain at home, or even on vacation in Mumbai.

There are many benefits of real-time awareness, but these advantages all lead to one important factor: actionable data. Giving you the power at your fingertips to act lightning fast, and knowledgeable, as issues arise and decisions demand to be made. These gains don’t just come to law enforcement and emergency responders. They bring improvements to all county services. Perks like:

Visual knowledge of fleet location.
Streamlined daily actions are requiring fewer resources.
A collection of data from any and all locations for analysis.
Better centralized operations.
More transparency from all county services maintaining safety and efficiency.
Know exact locations of all assets for theft-prevention, security, and visibility.

As the Internet of Things (IoT) evolves, technology is no longer just creating a solution with a singular task. Go ask Alexa to find out for yourself, and then come back. The technology is unfolding into modifying the end user’s behaviors and watching over activities to influence those actions. Smart solutions, like the one’s found in GPS tracking and fleet management, has grown from simply tracking the locations of vehicles out in the field.

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

Today’s solutions, whether for the government, business, and first responders, is also keeping watch for activities and behaviors that can put drivers, departments, enterprises and their reputations at risk. Think of these solutions as driver monitoring systems promoting safe driving, inter-departmental transparency, and a way to introduce a new level of value-added services to customers, protections for employees, and benefits to you.

The goal is clear when it comes to keeping companies secure and profitable through creating a safer environment for driver’s, deputies, or emergency medical personnel and GPS tracking solutions are the easiest and most efficient way to attain that goal. Composed of high-tech CalAmp fleet tracking devices, hardwired into vehicle systems and a dynamic dashboard for careful centralized team management. GPS devices, like industry-leading CalAmp devices, progressively collect raw data of all your vehicles, like, as mentioned earlier, driving behaviors like hard braking, rapid acceleration, and speeding, and then relay the information to your office or department.

The minute-by-minute location, performance, and maintenance data on each vehicle, and it’s driver, is a comprehensive and inclusive solution that is one large part of the IoT, bringing weekly driver activity, identifying risk behaviors and improving overall satisfaction amongst staff.

It’s easy. When you know what’s happening in the field, you can ensure everyone is focused on safety and your team can find new avenues to optimize routes and schedules and streamline operations.

An Internet of Things

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

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.

Old Country Roads – The Importance of GPS Tracking and GIS Map Correction In Rural America

Fleet tracking is not a new industry, having been around since the 1980’s, but the movement to track vehicle fleets really didn’t attract any attention until the mid-2000’s as more companies were required by the federal government to have data on the locations of their fleet. While the technology has grown rapidly in urban and large population areas, rural areas are just now starting to realize the importance of GPS tracking technology and GIS map correction. With rural institution’s limited budgets in comparison to the larger pocket books in metropolitan locations. It has become apparent that rural areas could benefit the most from the technology as roadways and landmarks are often incorrectly marked and rarely updated causing many emergency medical personnel, sheriffs deputies and fire fighters rescue crews delays. 97% of the land mass of the U.S. is classified as rural and small town.

Although 85% of America is geocoded to 911 standards, these standards are woefully inadequate, especially when the 3142 counties that make up rural America are mapped in a disparate number of antiquated software programs and not housed in a centralized database. As routes change this problem grows even more present as these old software solutions fail to be updated.

What is the importance of these roads being mapped? Rural roads are the harbingers of opportunity for many middle to low income families, and improving rural connectivity with GPS tracking technology and improved GIS mapping not only increases these opportunities but assists in the management of natural disasters and manmade crisis (fire, crime, etc.). In 1949, the United States had 2.5 million miles of rural road, over which half was unpaved that was utilized for mail delivery, school buses and milk delivery, then in 1950, due to pressure from both farm and political lobbies, a vast expansion ($2.4 billion) occurred, paving roads and building new ones. This expansion caused mess of non-essential roads, systemic breakdowns and lack of adequate road plans.

The need for rural GPS tracking: The errors caused by the roadway expansion makes GPS tracking not only a necessary means to find locations of vehicles but also to improve routes.

With a quagmire of dead ends, unmapped places and missing data, GPS hardware, along with mapping software allows communication between those attempting to reach a location with a dispatcher maintaining best practices.

GPS solutions are being found by many as the only way to correct problems of the past, and with a GIS expert correcting data on the mapping issues, the issues of the past can be stored in a centralized database for correction in the future.

What Can Happen in 5 1/2 Minutes

5.5 minutes is the average time it takes to check one’s voicemail. Take out the trash. Pay a bill online. And 5.5 minutes is the average length of a high speed chase in the United States. A great deal of situations, both good and bad, can occur in 5.5 minutes, from suspects apprehended without incident, to lives lost from major collisions. It is estimated that 1/3 of all pursuits end in a crash, with 10,000 people injured yearly, and killing 6301 suspects, 140 officers, and 2456 bystanders since the 90’s.

With these staggering numbers, make sure your department has the peace of mind it deserves by keeping informed and updated with the best in class tools supplied by Rural First GPS tracking.

While other GPS tracking solutions compete in the market with bottom of the basement pricing, most update the data of vehicles on the road every 5 minutes, losing the precious information between the beginning of a pursuit and final moments.

Don’t spend your money on a product that has the same amount of data you could get before you had a solution to begin with.

Rural First’s second by second mapping updates, with our patented HALO system, is the only solution that will show everything you need, from the pursuit vehicles idle time to the constant fluctuations of speed that occur during all pursuits.

This feature is a proven benefit of Rural First as multiple sheriff, police and highway patrol that currently use our GPS solutions find the information a life saver both in maintaining department vehicles and as evidence in court cases.

With Rural First’s easy to use and even easier to read layout, your department will know immediately all the details in all situations. Unlike most GPS tracking solutions on the market.

Rural First does not over-complicate our software with unwieldy charts, graphs and diagrams.

We give you the cleanest layout with only the information you need to keep your department running effectively.

But Rural First is not just great for high speed pursuits, but everything your officers do daily, as our informative and customizable HALO system gives the status of all your vehicles, whether they are patrolling an area, sitting idle or coming back from a location.

In addition, Rural First GPS solutions and HALO system is also a great product for government agencies that manage any vehicles including snow plows, mowers, and equipment, keeping you in-the-know on what your employees are doing or if your vehicle is being tampered with.

Visit ruralfirst.com or call to setup a demonstration to see what Rural First can do for you, after all, a great deal of situations can occur in 5.5 minutes.

3 Things Your Competitors Are Doing To Save Money With GPS Tracking

It’s not always about the sales you make but also about the savings you attain in your budget, especially when it comes to a companies fleet of vehicles. As your fleet grows, it becomes more and more difficult to manage all the aspects surrounding them. This is why a GPS tracking hardware and software solution, like Rural First, is so important to the management of your fleet.

1. Lower Idle Time

Whether you are a sheriff, traffic officer or EMT personnel, over a day’s time, a engine will idle for unnecessary hours burning fuel. In just an hour, idling is equal to roughly 64,000 miles of engine wear that ages the vehicle and impacts fuel efficiency. Imagine the savings from controlling this idle time with a GPS tracing system in place so you can monitor the fleet, get reports that inform and engage with alerts that notify when idle time occurs. Lowering idle time has become so popular that one telecom corporation addressed the issue and reduced fuel consumption by 1,000,000 gallons a year, the equivalent of taking 1,600 vehicles off the road.

2. Watch Driver Speed Behavior

Sometimes getting to a situation the fastest is not as important as getting to a location safely. Installing GPS vehicle tracking devices makes drivers more accountable and drive safer. Employees that know you are monitoring their driving tend to take greater care in how they are using fleet vehicles. Improved behavior saves fuel, reduces unsafe driving and enhances your reputation on the roads.

3. Better Routes

Faster routes lower costs and with manual GIS mapping, like that with Rural First, optimizes a route helping drivers navigate the roadway, avoid traffic difficulties, and reduce idle time saving fuel. According to a recent study using GPS tracking technology saves more than 240 miles of driving per vehicle each week equaling less maintenance requirements for each fleet vehicle.

Mapping: The Solution and The Advantage On Sheriff Departments

Most digital mapping errors begin with human hands. Whether from being overlooked to just plain laziness, these errors have a great impact on many sheriff departments when time is of the utmost importance to get to an emergency, and when you factor in a rural location with fewer routes to an area these errors have even greater impact. That is why at Rural First, we spend a great deal of time evolving suitable strategies to reduce these errors.

Because all maps at Rural First start with local data retrieved from county maps, our first step is to perform an assessment to find how accurate the current mapping is. This assessment creates the baseline from which all our corrections will be made. In combination with digital mapping already available, we evaluate and compare discovering incorrect information.

And then the real work begins.

With our team of GIS mapping experts, these mapping errors are carefully fixed. Corrections are then evaluated by a team lead to insure they are true. The team lead then either approves the corrections, or sent back to our team of experts for further research. Not only does our expert map correction make Rural First a leader in the GPS tracking and solutions market, but out best practices approach to map correction sets us above and beyond the competition.

But because Rural First is an industry leader, our maps are Living Maps that our experts constantly return to update, correct and grow. Routes change, roads are added, highways moved, and Rural First makes sure that you are the first know, so you always make it to an emergency as quickly as possible.