March 13, 2007
Taxis in Nairobi use new GPS technology
Mumbi's Dial-a-Cab company is one of 20 fleet firms in Kenya which have adopted a new vehicle-tracking technology that has been made possible by the growth of mobile phones. The BBC reports.
The brains behind this new technology are two young IT enthusiasts, Paul Mahiaini and Waweru Kimani. "We saw a gap in the market with fleet owners having a huge problem monitoring their vehicles," says Mahiaini, who acts as marketing director of Stoic Company.
"Misuse of vehicles by drivers is common, as is fuel theft, and fleet owners in the past relied on drivers to tell them the location of each vehicle. "So we developed this new tracking technology which enables companies and individuals to monitor their vehicles in real time on the internet using the mobile phone network".
This device captures information such as when car doors are opened, how long the car has stopped, and vehicle speed and location.
Through a built-in mobile phone sim card, the transponder continuously relays the data back to Stoic's main server and the control room of the fleet company via the mobile phone network".
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