Jan/Feb 2005

The London Borough of Richmond is introducing a range of real-time tracking services on its transport operations, including GPS-based tracking of buses and mobile phone-based tracking of remote workers. All these requirements are being met by a package from Masternaut, which won the contract following a competitive tender.

The vehicle tracking is seen as helpful in monitoring the progress of services during the day, redirecting vehicles as new requests come in, and providing users with estimated arrival times. The council provides a range of transport services for the elderly, people with learning difficulties and children with special needs.

The phone tracking, a recent addition by Masternaut, is being used to track staff on work such as accompanying children and people needing special care.

Later the council is said to be planning to issue some staff with PDA devices so that they can use Masternaut's M-Schedule system, which will allow pickup requests to be sent directly to drivers, along with instructions for navigating to the location.