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A powerful Internet mapping system supplied by Kingswood MapMechanics lies at the heart of Track@Phone, one of the fastest-growing new mobile phone-based people and asset location and tracking systems.
Track@Phone allows subscribing businesses and individuals to find the location of anyone with a mobile phone who has agreed to participate, using data derived from the relevant mobile phone network operator to plot its position. The service has quickly gained endorsement from some leading industry players; for instance, it is being resold by Dixons Group’s Genesis Communications mobile phone business, and marketed through its PC World chain. |
The appeal of the Kingswood MapMechanics proposition, according to Track@Phone director and co-founder Alan Davidson, was that the company was able supply a comprehensive package of Internet map processing software and digital map data, ideally configured to produce on-screen displays of tracked phones. The company’s implementation support was also invaluable, he says. “The Kingswood MapMechanics people had plenty of experience of Internet mapping, and understood exactly what we needed.”
The location is delivered over the Web and displayed on a map generated by GeoConcept, the geographic information system supplied and supported in Britain by Kingswood MapMechanics. The map data is based on the NAVTEQ street-level map database of Britain, also supplied by Kingswood MapMechanics.
Track@Phone is also using unit postcode data supplied by Kingswood MapMechanics to identify the postcode nearest to the location of each phone.
At the heart of the Track@Phone system is a computer application called People Locator, which users download when they first sign up to the service. The GeoConcept mapping is displayed in a window integrated into this interface.
A benefit of this approach is that unlike more elementary phone-based tracking systems, in which the tracking information is lost as soon as the user closes the browser window, Track@Phone downloads and saves tracking data on the user’s computer. So the information can be called up and analysed later by the People Locator software without having to be downloaded all over again.
“We’ve been concentrating initially on the commercial market,” says director Alan Davidson, “and we were keen to be able to allow business users to review and analyse their information.”
Among other features of the system, users can make a request to see the mobile nearest to a given location – ideal for allocating engineers to service calls, for instance, or directing vehicles to pick-up points. Users can also see a “snapshot” view of all tracked mobiles; and there is a facility to set up “geofences” – virtual geographical boundaries – and receive alerts if mobile users enter or leave the designated area.
The system works by calling up location information on all mobile phone users that is captured automatically by the network operators. In response to a request from a user, GeoConcept Internet Server generates a map showing the area in question, and sends this over the Web to the user’s computer. The map can vary in scale according to the location, but usually shows a radius of between 500m and 2km of the mobile’s location. However, users can zoom in or out to see the amount of detail they need.
A GeoConcept feature called Smartlabel is used to ensure that street names and other labels are always displayed intelligently on the maps so that they don’t overlap one another or conflict with other map detail. Development kits for Java and other languages are available for GeoConcept users to allow the creation of anything from bespoke functions to complete map-based applications. The implementation also takes advantage of a feature called Streetwise, which generates location statements from coordinates.
Track@Phone is unusual in the emerging cell-site location systems market in that the company deals directly with the four major mobile phone networks (O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone), rather than buying airtime from third-party aggregators. Alan Davidson says this provides extra reassurance of security to users.
Track@Phone has been over two years in development. The business-to-business operation is now fully up and running, and by early spring had around 1,200 phones on the system. A consumer-oriented version of the system is due for launch this summer. |
