Over the past decade, GPS vehicle tracking has become increasingly commonplace in just about all segments of society.  With its variety of business and consumer applications ranging from transportation to law enforcement to teen driving, GPS tracking is proving to boost employee productivity for business owners and enhance personal safety among drivers and passengers in all types of vehicles.

How GPS Vehicle Tracking Works:

GPS tracking uses the Global Positioning System to instantly track the movement of a vehicle.  Signals received from the twenty-four Department of Defense satellites that orbit the earth record the GPS location of a vehicle and monitor travel activities such as times of departure, routes traveled, speed of vehicle and number and duration of stops the vehicle has made.

GPS tracking systems are placed in two different categories, passive and active, which is also known as “real-time”.   Passive GPS tracking devices store GPS location data in their internal memory which can then be downloaded to a computer for viewing at a later time, while active GPS tracking systems send the data at regular intervals to be viewed in “real-time”.

Common Uses of GPS Vehicle Tracking:

When real-time data is not required, passive GPS tracking devices tend to be favored more by individual consumers for their compact convenience and affordability.  Concerned parents can install a GPS tracking unit just about anywhere in their teens’ vehicles to monitor their driving habits and know where they’ve been going, and even law enforcement officials now rely on passive GPS tracking to trail criminal suspects and enhance civilian safety via electronic surveillance of parolees.  Passive GPS tracking units also serve as a theft prevention and retrieval aid in consumer as well as commercial vehicles.

Active GPS tracking systems find their applications primarily in industries and businesses, and are fast becoming the standard for companies who wish to monitor fleet vehicles as well as other heavy equipment.  Real time GPS tracking is practical for acquiring immediate and detailed information about large numbers of vehicles or objects that are being tracked.  For example, in a business that provides company cars for its employees, real-time vehicle tracking systems prove beneficial in supplying current and historical data on routes taken by all their drivers whenever they are in motion.

While the technical and operational requirements for passive and real-time applications are different in a number of ways, each is interchangeable among commercial entities and individuals, depending upon their various vehicle tracking needs.

Increased employee productivity and better driver and passenger protection are valid indications that GPS tracking has, and will continue, to revolutionize the technology of transportation.