Highly Improved Service for Tracking, Navigation

Logistics Insight Asia - Top Story, 23/6/2008

The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) and tech firm InfoWave are marketing a high-precision Global Positioning System (GPS) service to fleet owners, motor insurers and individual drivers.

The new system – it has five beacons islandwide connected to a control centre – overcomes the inaccuracies of conventional GPS caused by tall buildings, tunnels and even clouds.

Differential GPS (DGPS), as it is called, is precise to just 0.5m, compared with up to 30m for traditional GPS. Because it is so accurate, it can detect if a vehicle is on a particular road or a side lane parallel to it, or even which side of the road it is parked on.

It can also determine if a motorist is driving safely, or weaving in and out of traffic or accelerating and braking hard. That will help insurers price premiums more fairly. “We expect our first customers to include fleet operators, vehicle leasing companies, insurers and real estate agents,” said Mr Joe Cheu, a director of InfoWave, which was a unit of ST Electronics until a management buyout last October.

Other users could include transport operators, emergency and security services and even parents who want to keep tabs on their children.

The new system will be the first time SLA’s two-year-old Satellite Positioning Reference Network – used almost exclusively by surveyors – will be applied this way. Future uses could include road pricing and content supplying that has advertising and social networking applications.

Cheu added that the company is in talks with PSA to equip 1,000 vehicles – mainly trucks. Discussions are also under way with the Ministry of Defence.

Infowave, www.infowave.sg