GPS and the future of road transport

In fact, I was at the Consumer Electronics Show the year GPS devices were available to the public. I was happy because I was busy traveling across the country in a Mobile Command Center that ran my business and had all the amenities, including a satellite internet antenna, brand new in the 1990s. I was fully connected, and not just with caffeine, if you know what I mean.

GPS technology has come a long way since then, even in recent years. In August 2010, Garmin had just recalled about 1.3 million GPS units due to equipment device fires, challenges with circuit board designs. They did well and remained a leader in the industry.

There was an interesting article in the Commercial Carrier Journal on September 12, 2013 titled; “Who’s the Captain? The GPS Device Takes a Trucker for a Wild Ride” by Aaron Huff, who stated; “A truck driver was supposed to deliver a flat load of fence material near the mouth of Butterfield Canyon in the southwest corner of Utah’s Salt Lake Valley. The driver never arrived. Instead, around 1:00 a.m. P.M., Police got a call for help. The driver was stuck in a sharp left turn at the top of the canyon. The trailer tires were inches from falling off a steep cliff in the center of the giant mine. ” .

Apparently his GPS told him to keep going, so he didn’t make the right turn and drove a mile further, there was no place to turn and the road was getting narrower and narrower. Clearly it was the fault of the GPS, right? Yes, but even if the GPS makes a mistake, in the end the driver will be blamed. I have seen drivers accidentally enter an area where there are no trucks due to GPS and get a ticket, which they had to pay for, plus points on their driving record.

Okay, consider this, before we get autonomous cars and trucks, we’ll need to have a fully tested GPS, but to do that we need better backup, better accuracy, better software, better data providers, and universal compatibility. Next, we will need positioning strategies other than satellite ones.

Ultimately, we will have to expect more from users, more responsibility to follow the system, especially when passengers, high-priority freight transportation, and autonomous systems rely on Six Sigma or better perfection. In fact, I’m not here to litter the GPS of our time, just to remind everyone that there is room for improvement and that this should be a priority, so consider all of this and think about it.