GPS tracking devices

I did my first assist for a Bronze training over the weekend, and the teams each had a GPS tracking device (a GlobalSat TR203, I think).  The associated mapping website was a little slow to update, so it meant that groups couldn't be tracked very well, not that it was an issue in the end.

But I thought I'd ask if any other DoE assistants/supervisors/assessors have experience with this sort of thing, and could suggest similar products.  Now I know this ought to be right up my street (and we have a road-tolling trial system at work that could provide something very similar, but it would need tailoring, and that would be expensive...), but google gives gazillions of hits, so I thought I'd ask first, before digging in deep myself.

The units were bought after some discussion with some part of the DoE, I think.

Thanks,

cp

If you have smart phones (Android or Apple), take a look a look at ViewRanger combined with SocialHiking.

Using ViewRanger and enabling BuddyBeacons within the app, then linking via Twitter to SocialHiking you can get a near realtime view of the location. For an example check the SocialHiking webpage for maps marked Live.

NB - this does rely on some form of data signal, although it doesn't have to be full 3G. This could be an issue in some remote locations.

One thing to note is that it's a good idea to keep an eye on battery consumption and either have spare batteries (Android) or a means of recharging the battery in an Apple.

ViewRanger - http://www.viewranger.com
SocialHiking - http://www.shareyouradventure.com

If you have a phone signal there are lots of ways to get someone's location with Android phones. I have just set one up that will respond to a text message containing a keyword. This turns on the GPS for 2 mins, grabs the location and sends an SMS back to the sender with the coordinates and a link to Google maps. The app then turns off the GPS to save battery.

However, there are several caveats:

* Someone needs to have an Android phone.
* Having the GPS on all the time will drain your battery.
* Recent versions of Android won't allow GPS on phones to be turned on and off remotely, unless you have rooted the phone.

CP - I've been investigating this for some time.

I do DofE/Ten Tors/School Exped groups in my spare time for friends, and a variety of things through work.

Through work, I have access to SPOT trackers. This is pretty much the gold plated, all singing/dancing solution that works everywhere (unless you end up in southern africa and a couple of other remote spots around the world, but pretty much you're covered!). The major issue with SPOT is the subscription cost. The units are reasonably priced (between £100 & £140 depending on what you get) but the basic subscription is somewhere in the region of £75 a year per unit, on top of which you need to add about £20 to use it in the way that you want (ie active tracking). That's out of the reach of most volunteer based groups (especially if you're talking about ten+ walking groups out and about at the same time, which is what I was running weekend before last.)

The android/iphone solution is one I've been looking at and have trialed recently. The main issue is the batteries are just not up to the job for weekend tracking. However, if you look at getting a phone + powermonkey/charger that is a possibility. I tried using an Orange San Francisco (£90 PAYG) and Google's Latitude service. It's not a bad solution but the issue with it is that it drops a pin on google maps wherever your group is. Good until they're in the back of beyond with no roads/identifying features, when Maps becomes pretty much useless! As mentioned above, view ranger or similar do the same thing broadly speaking. The other issue is obviously that it requires cell-phone signal to upload its position (SPOT uses SatPhone) and thus you require a signal. To be honest, this is not as much of a problem as people make out in the UK. The thing it doesn't necessarily do is give you the group position "right now" but generally in my experience you can keep track of where they've been in the last two hours, as it "pings" whenever it has signal, so your search is usually over quite a limited area. One issue, as mentioned is that you can't really profile the device to turn on at a specific time (i.e. morning) and turn off again in the evening, which would be useful on multi-day expeds.

The solution you mention is one I've been looking for really. The "vehicle tracker" solutions are generally economical (as they're under commercial pressure) and have pretty decent battery life as you don't have a whole bunch of un-necessary stuff going on in the background.

I'm considering trialling the TR-151, which is described as a "vehicle tracker" but pretty much does everything you need, and runs from a decently sized battery. Handily enough it also has a motion sensor mode, which only reports its' position whilst moving, so it should shut down overnight and save battery also. Again, this relies on cellphone, but given the above, it'll probably be ok. I believe (and this is "believe" only as I haven't trialled it) it will cache the route it has taken and upload it whenever it has cellphone signal. Crucially this can also be run on a PAYG sim (Orange is the one I'm looking at) so you haven't really got a subscription cost as such. More expensive than the San Francisco plus a powermonkey, but probably a neater, more reliable solution. The 151 is around £240 with VAT, but you can pick up a 5-pack for £870, which might be ideal for group work.

My solution long term I suspect will be to pick up around 6 of the TR-151 trackers and then if I'm doing gold-level work in the Highlands or somewhere with limited signal to hire some SPOTs (they can be had for around £30 a weekend).


<edit to add> The "PingMe" on Amazon also looks like it might be a go-er, but I'm not sure on the reliability levels. It's available for around £65 though.

We had a couple of mapyx reps down to see see our unit and another gold dofe unit just over a year ago to demo mapyx with a tracking module for use with both spot and Teltonika GSM Trackers. 

I was quite impressed with with the system, one of the guys basically set up the laptop connected to the web with a 3G dongle while another chap went for a walkabout with the various devices which tracked well. They even had an add on for mapx so a group could plot there route and it would produce there DofE route card and map and of course leave the leader with the route for each group so you could track there movements against on screen.

However I couldnt see any practical application for silver and bronze expeditions as generally they shouldnt be that far from civilization and for the regions covered by Gold, mobile let alown 3G coverage is non existant meaning a person would need to be situated in the pub or BB all day using there wi fi for tracking. The setup and annual subscriptions where pretty pricey as well although you can hire these devices out. 

Tallwood - The benefit of being able to keep track of a lot of groups at the same time, plus the situational awareness it gives other members of your team is not to be underestimated.

Bronze level tends not to be an issue, but if you are dealing with a number of groups, the ability to predict exactly where they will be and when (especially if they are groups you haven't worked with before) is a massive time saver, allowing you to concentrate on "problem" groups to a greater extent. The other nicety is the ability to find that elusive lost group. Remote monitoring in an area with a large number of possible mistakes can be a bit of a nightmare to say the least, and if it saves you three hours trying to find the group that is walking 90deg out from where they should be, that is three hours you can spend teaching rather than searching.

I'll agree that in some parts of the uk cellphone signal is a bit patchy, but you don't need 3G for this stuff to work, just bog-standard 2G with a data connection, which is easily found anywhere outside of Scotland if you're mobile (top of the nearest hill usually!). Scotland presents more of an issue, which is where SPOT can come in, especially as gold groups generally require less frequent supervision. The other fringe benefit of SPOT is the SOS/999 button. It lets you send a distress message or an OK message to a pre-programmed mobile number, or to send a databurst to a rescue co-ordination cell. We use that at work a fair bit (i.e. when you stop moving for the day, send an OK signal).

The subscription thing is always pricey, but some of the cell-phone based devices now allow you to use a bog-standard PAYG sim card, avoiding that problem (especially as the data usage is pretty light).

Thanks for the replies.  I'd already suggested that any mobile phone can be tracked, provided you've signed up for access; there are plenty of services to do this, using TDOA triangulation within the GSM base station network.  The issue with this is resolution in a sparse base station area, and the loss of postion if there's no coverage, but that's true of any system that uses GSM/GPRS to report position.

Smartphones with GPS and position sharing is another option, but the battery life is an issue.

The GlobalSat units themselves seemed to be perfectly good; the issue was with the reporting and mapping software.

I might have to look at the research system we have at work for road tolling, as I think this could be bent to our will...

The GlobalSat units have an SOS button, and allegedly allow remote monitoring of the microphone; not sure about the latter, as that would require a 'silent answer', which I think is problematic with voice phones, and requires a special 'data to data' (D2D) SIM.