MT GPS fleet trackers?
 

anyone else noticed the little black box in the corner of the windscreen on MT astras thats been installed recently? Im just wondering if anyone knows what they do and who they report too. They have 3 LEDs on them, green, orange if your naughty, and red if your very naughty (speed wise it seems). the MT staff dont seem to know anything about them either. :hmm:

I read somewhere on the intranet recently that they are being fitted to about 4000 vehicles accross all 3 services at a cost of about £5m in some project to monitor how service vehicles are driven.

nice to know our government feels it needs to spend 5m because they dont trust their own armed forces with diesel hatchbacks! However it doesn't surprise me...

And if you try and pull them off screen the hazard lights flash .....

By all accounts they monitor acceleration, braking and steering and indicate on the dash 'traffic light' system how erratically you're driving.

Still green at 84 mph t'other day though....

Dogsiht system. You can be doing 60 in a 30 and it will still show green. Woe betide if you sit at 80 on a motorway though. Bad boy red. Sat in traffic on the M1 after hitting the usual block, amber moderate risk for 15 minutes as I crept forward at 2 mph before it went green.

Ideally you'd want some sort of portable GPS jammer. No idea where you'd find such a thing.

Can't say I'm massively bothered by this sort of thing in principle. I do however object to our bankrupt little air force prioritising what little money we have on irrelevant schemes like this when certain Aircraft fleets are scrabbling around for every penny they can. £5M would fill a lot of operational gaps we currently have. Well done to the "support" services - another winner.

:rolleyes:

Stoppers, old chum, could you please delete that link in your post.

The reason I ask is that it includes some very nasty toys, such as powerful green la.sers......

Although the idea of a portable device which jams all cellphones within a 10m radius does sound as though it could make journeys on the choo-choo rather less tedious.....:hmm:

Talking of choo-choos, I happened to see* The Bristolian chuffing along yesterday headed by a Castle class locomotive. Brilliant sight - I hadn't seen that for about 50 years!






*OK, OK - actually I knew about it and drove to a good vantage point to wait for it! And no, I didn't have my jam sandwiches, school exercise book, bic pen, Ian Allan guide and orange cagoule!

Quote:

---

And no, I didn't have my jam sandwiches, school exercise book, bic pen, Ian Allan guide and orange cagoule!

---

:8
Oh yes you did Beagle

With this newfangled black box, staff will be needed to analyse the contents and dish out floggings as required. A handy job for some poor ex-servicemen, who didn't get a pension increase!

Just for you, goudie:


Not a very good photo as I was looking almost due south at 1300BST...

You're right about spending priorities though - £5M on these systems seems profligate. Is this a 'spend to save' initiative? Is the data recovered and analysed?

All part of nuLabor's surveillance society.....

Thank you Beagle. Now that was a good vantage point

There is a button by the ignition barrel which turns the system off, rumour has it!:ok:

BEagle,

What a great picture. Not a spotter, but one who appreciates Britain's heritage - I'm afraid the (Italian) Pendolinos and the various other 'foreign' makes on our tracks just don't stir either the emotions or the imagination!

NZWP

Word has it that they actually monitor your whereabouts including what road you are on/have been on. MTO receives a list each month of those naughty boys and girls exceeding authorised distance, straying off track and speed limit. Resulting in a meeting positive cap, negative tea, negative biscuits.

Apparently a former WO at a particular green and pointy training establishment instigated the system in his fleet. Deemed so successful in the higher echelons it was adopted across the rest of the Service and by the other two as well.

Struggle

I have been through one of these fleet driver managment thing's using the boxes.

Some have a gps others don't, they have a accelerometer and also sometimes a 3G sim card to send the data.

The lorry fleet was about 50 units and the boxes were installed, bitched about then ignored. After a month a bloke turned up with a laptop and plugged it into your engine managment system. Then let you drive for a bit. Then he drove for a bit. You then had a look at fuel burns through a range of gears etc etc. Then he got you to drive in his style and you had another look at the laptop. The up side was that all the new units that came in were the highest powered beasts on the market. Something to do with smaller engines having to have the turbo kicked in all the time where as the larger engine could sit with it out most of the time. The extra 20k for the larger engine was covered in 4 months of operating.

Result was after 2 months the fuel bill was decreased by 15% and 3 people arrested for stealing fuel.


Whats the fuel bill for the three services?

It is my understanding that by 'law' if you are being monitored or data is being taken from you, as an individual, that you have to be informed? If it is a trial, you also have to give agreement to participate.

Look at the white fleet vehicles that have a tachograph fitted, there should be a white sticker telling you that data is being recorded.

Big Brother is watching.............:mad:

I clearly remember a number of 230 aircrew in the 80s getting very exercised by the introduction of blood tests into the annual medical.

Much "They can't do this to us, we have rights" was going on in the crewroom. I seem to recall that the 2i/c was Boss at the time, due to an indiscretion on the part of the actual Boss.

On hearing the whiney noises, Pete C simply 'edicted', "OK, no jab, no medical cat. No cat, no fly, no fly no flying pay".

Problem solved. Seemingly it's not a democracy (or wasn't).

CG

It wasn't the blood test as such (although the early 'manual' syringes were very unpleasant), it was the fact that you were forced to sign a piece of paper consenting to the test.....in order to get the medical mafia off the hook of 'assault'.

Easy solution, amend the piece of paper, then sign... Jobza!!

Charlie G,

It is interesting that you mention 230......Reading back through the thread it is with great sadness that, if the system had spent a fraction of the money introducing this trial on a decent harness for one of the crewman 3 years ago, then 230, the RAF, his wife and most importantly his children wouldn't have lost a good man.

If all the system is trying to achieve is a few pounds saving diesel, then I'm glad to see we have a priorities in the right place.:ugh:

RIP Mac.

Of course, I had forgotten the 'assault' charge. That's what the first smart arses threatened as an out. The result was the same in the end.

CBTL I've given up trying to rationalise these things!

CG