New York City Now GPS Tracking Building Inspectors
It’s fairly common for police departments to use Global Positioning System (GPS) vehicle tracking systems, to track down the nearest cruiser to a call, or perhaps catch a cop in the donut shop.
Now, New York City has thought of a new way to use GPS tracking for staff management: to check if building inspectors are slacking instead of inspecting.
By the end of September, all 379 inspectors in the Department of Buildings will be monitored by GPS tracking in their city-issued cell phones. The workers’ handhelds act as GPS tracking receivers, capturing location coordinates from satellites orbiting the planet. The technology is similar to that used in GPS vehicle tracking. Date, time and location of the GPS tracking receiver is recorded every few seconds or minutes, usually with amazing accuracy. A wireless network is used to stream the GPS tracking data over the Internet. Supervisors are able to log onto any computer with a secure password and access code, and “watch” their workers go about their shifts, almost exactly as it is happening, called real-time GPS tracking. The workers’ travels are usually shown over a map and are also available in a chart, or in a GPS tracking text report.
A supervisor could manage dozens or even hundreds of workers on a shift, being able to visually confirm by GPS tracking if an employee is where he is supposed to be. A record of daily travels can also be kept, to compare GPS tracking coordinates against employee daily reports and time cards.
A spokesman for the Department of Buildings said he did not expect the GPS tracking units will uncover widespread abuses of city time. Rather, GPS tracking would help supervisors run the agency more efficiently and be more responsible with taxpayers’ money.
The benefits of GPS tracking are clear. There have been recent news reports of employee error in the department, most notably with the city’s crane and elevator inspectors. Last year, one inspector was cited for filing a false report of a crane inspection in Manhattan. The construction equipment collapsed about 10 days after his reported inspection and seven people died. Officials determined that the employee never visited the site.
The department spokesman admitted GPS tracking would have flagged that false report. GPS tracking would also allow supervisors to easily find employees who have lost contact with the office.
Some inspectors are suspicious and annoyed at the new GPS tracking policy. The local union issued a statement arguing that the city should not be able to scrutinize their travels with GPS tracking, as though they were criminals.
Department officials responded that there is a function in the GPS tracking program that keeps track of every employee’s scheduled shifts, but the GPS tracking program is disabled when employees are off the clock.
Since the workers are on city time, driving city vehicles and carrying city-owned cell phones, they don’t have much choice whether or not real-time GPS tracking is enabled.
New York City chose GPS tracking via cell phones. But there are other choices in GPS tracking systems. One is a real-time unit that attaches to the vehicle and is designed specifically and exclusively for vehicle tracking. Another GPS tracking system that would work for this application is a passive vehicle tracking device. Rather than real-time vehicle tracking, passive vehicle tracking units collect and record the same GPS tracking data for later viewing, at a lower cost.
Tags: building, Cell, construction, GPS Tracking, inspectors, phones
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