Taxi Driver Online

Why do companies continue to make us believe that GPS tracking servers should be expensive to use. All they are are data loggers. Google let you store huge amounts of data for free and the algorithms in "Call of Duty 3" are far more complex than the simple calculations performed in any piece of tracking software. Still we are made to believe that we have to pay £15/car/month.

They charge the £15 to make a profit out of that service, to keep the bosses rich.

Welcome to 2014.

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IDFIMH

Most will be profit but a good lump of it will probably be for the GPS device and the air time it uses.

The storage and retrieval of relatively small numeric data files will be next to nothing.

Bill

Well, not that long ago, hardware was hundreds of pounds and GPRS cost an arm and a leg. This is not the case anymore. The market is flooded now with good quality hardware under £100 and GPRS is practically free. The real problem lies in the business models that companies use and as always the lack of real competition, (I won't go as far to say price fixing!).
As an example, most still tie you to their own hardware. I often get quoted £200-£250 for hardware when we all know that the market is flooded with similar devices for between £50 and £100. Then a charge for GPRS when I see that a Lebara sim card in the UK will provide 1Mbyte of data free each day. Enough I think for most applications. Then the real problem, the cost of tracking site access and so called "mainenance". £15-£20/month is not uncommon. That is a licence to print money to store a few megabytes of data on their server and run some simple software that plots position on a map and calculates some simple metadata from strings received. Sure many need to pay for the Google Maps agreement but why use Google Maps when wiki maps such as OSM are better.
It is time for a new approach to this business. Here is a good possible solution to start the ball rolling. Use companies like http://www.gps-server.net that are hardware independent and sim card independent. They will charge you around £1/car/month for software use. Start using cheaper reliable hardware and a free Lebara sim card.
So with old model I pay £200 hardware and £20/month so I pay £70,000 to track 50 cars over five years
With new model I pay £90 hardware and £1/month so I pay £3000 to track 50 cars over five years.
All we need is a software company to produce a more taxi based tracking application on the same model.

Oh, forgot to mention. The "new model" companies are not very secretive about their prices. In fact when you think about it, why should any tracking company be secretive about their prices. If I go to PC World to buy a TV the price is shown, they don't say, "come into the room at the back and we can discuss the price" !! To act like this is clearly an attempt to charge different people different prices for the same service and also possibly to maintain the mystigue of the "magic that is GPS" - a clear "marketing man" strategy. This is the old world approach that has to change. GPS is a household name know as is the internet, e-mail and GPRS - their is no magic anymore.

Sounds great, what other companies are there, or are you just interested in joining this forum and promoting that one?

You don't think he works for them do you?

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Grandad,

OK, how about this lot then for a new way of doing things http://www.taxify.eu

Seems silly to buy new taxi hardware when you carry the same technology around in your smartphones.

They tell you what their prices are straight up, (no back room discussions) and only charge per job - no fixed fees.

Seems like a new business model to me.

Maybe I work for them too?

What I dont get is if your running 50 cars on your fleet then your dispatch software should be doing all the tracking for you. Tell me your not paying those sort of prices for tracking only

We've been arround for longer than most others in this business and have always published our prices. If you're using your own pdas then we charge a pound a car per month but thats for the full blown system rather than just a tracker and there's none of this charge per job nonsense either.

We've been using this business model for years and if you need any proof of how it works, then you're welcome to come and count the holes in my socks.

Bill

All technology get faster and "open source", look how Google bust open mapping and I had a DIY tracker using a dashboard gadget years ago so punters could track my delivery

stuff like this (they did their own system)


http://locatea.co.uk/

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

what happened to the planned European (PAYG) satellites for GPS, to replace the FOC yank satellite service?

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

Perhaps they got lost!

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Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

Not until 2019. Free for basic use, paid for high precision.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_( ... navigation)