The Indian Express, Dec. 19th 2003
Madurai, Dec 19: This small device may well prove to be a godsend to the beleaguered Madurai corporation with a cash crunch. A new device, GPS Black Box, tried-and -tested with great success in the Coimbatore corporation has been fitted in the lorries of the civic body here. This move is expected to reduce the fuel bills to a great extent
Water lorries, sewage tankers and garbage clearing lorries of Madurai Corporation will from now on sport the GPS(Global Positioning system),the black box that would provide the authorities with various data which includes vehicle movement, thus bringing in transparency in the functioning of the civic body's transport system.
Inaugurating the new facility at the Corporation complex here on Friday in the presence of corporation Commissioner A Karthik and councilors, Madurai Mayor C Ramachandran said, the GPS Black Box has been fitted in 20 vehicles at a cost of Rs 3.25 lakh. He hoped that GPS will help check unauthorized stopping of vehicles as the black box can store data for a whole year.
Kathik said, the sleek black box is fitted atop the driver's seat and connected through the battery. Moreover any disconnection or reconnection of the box gets recorded too.
The corporation can save a sizable money in its fuel bills in the coming days as drivers cannot cheat authorities by resorting to rout diversion and unauthorized trips.
The GPS concept has been a success in Coimbatore Corporation, said the technocrats from Bannari Infotech(part of the Bannari Amman Group) who installed the system. Within a short span, the investment on GPS was earned back through fuel saving and today 50 lorries in Coimbatore city have been fitted with black boxes, they added.
Explaining its functioning ,the engineers said the GPS black box is a unique product that would be a boon wherever driver compliance is necessary.
It is a positioning system using 24 orbiting satellites operated by the US Department of Defence and enables a GPS receiver on the ground to plot the latitude and longitude(position) accurately, besides logging in other parameters like time taken, wind velocity etc.
Though one cannot track the movement of lories online, at the end of the day or once a week, the GPS Black Box can be connected to a computer and by downloading, vital information, say, the number of stops made by a particular lorry, duration, speed, direction, list of stops with landmarks etc can be precisely followed up. The officers in the engineering and accounts section of the corporation would carry out the downloading of information at regular intervals.
The technocrats further added that the GPS BlackBox, a good reporting system is user-friendly too. The advantage of using GPS is that there are no recurring costs and it obviates usage of internet. The device specifically made for the transport industry has been performing well in many countries, they added.
Deputy Mayor Chinnasamy, Deputy Commissioner Rajamani, Acs Mehabooba and lakshmi, CHO Dr Tamarai Selvi, Councilors and zonal chairmen were also present
