Theft is a bigger problem with today’s cargo carriers than you might realize. Not only does it cost your business money, but it also erodes the trust of customers — and it increases your insurance rates. Technology has evolved, though, and with that evolution comes new and exciting tools and tips you have at your disposal to mitigate and deter theft from your trucks.

Consider these tips to help reduce your exposure and risk when it comes to cargo theft.

Lock Your Trailer Doors

If your drivers aren’t locking trailer doors as a matter of course, it’s time to change your policies to encourage that behavior from drivers. If you are currently locking trailer doors and still have a problem with theft, then perhaps it’s time to upgrade your door locks.

One effective locking system for trucking companies involves using a round lock that features a hidden, shackle padlock. These locks are designed to protect against a wide range of attempts at entry including:

• Drilling
• Sawing
• Prying
• Hammering
• Using Crowbars

This is in addition to the fact that the sheltered shackle makes picking the lock an even greater challenge. Since most thieves are looking for targets of convenience, a complex locking system will encourage them to choose a different mark.

Utilize GPS Fleet Tracking

GPS fleet tracking can help you reduce cargo theft in numerous ways. First, it can help you identify trouble spots along your path and plan routes that eliminate these areas from your routes.

Second, you can use GPS fleet tracking to inform you if drivers are deviating from routes, making unscheduled stops, or even if your vehicle is operating at times when it shouldn’t be (in the event of vehicle theft).

Third, GPS tracking devices can be placed in with cargo providing real time location updates – not to mention text or email alerts when items are removed from your vehicles – allowing for the prompt capture of thieves and recovery of stolen cargo.

Finally, GPS fleet tracking services can be used to deviate routes on the go so that even your drivers aren’t sure of their exact routes (providing an added layer of security) until they are behind the wheel.

Vary Routes and Cargo Lanes

Thieves today are getting smarter and taking advantage of your weaknesses. Set schedules and routines, while efficient for business, place your cargo at risk from thieves who know when your drivers break for sleep, the routes they take, and their favorite pit stops along the way. Varying routes and routines helps to avoid complacency and eliminates patterns you may not even realize exist.

Small changes in the way you operate can help to reduce your exposure to theft while ensuring that your cargo reaches its intended destination. These tips will help.

Many companies offer company cars to employees for a variety of reasons. Some consider them positional perks. Others offer them as a way to improve visibility and build their brands. Whatever reason your business offers company cars, GPS car tracking provides you with an attractive set of options for protecting that investment and making it pay off big for your business. These are just a few things you can use GPS vehicle tracking in company cars to accomplish.

Improve Customer Service

You better believe that when employees know they’re being closely monitored they are going to be more mindful of schedules, timeliness, rules, and regulations. If you have any doubt, think of how much slower traffic moves when there are police cars in the area. It may not even be a conscious move on your employees’ parts, but they will be far more attentive to moving things along for your customers if they know you can keep an eye on their progress remotely. This works no matter what business you’re in: sales, insurance, deliveries, etc. Customer service improves when GPS is used to track your drivers.

Encourages Safer Driving

If your company cars are branded, your drivers are representatives of your business every time they get behind the wheel. Without GPS tracking, you can only hope that they are driving right to safeguard your reputation and good image among other drivers. With GPS tracking, though, you can receive notifications when your drivers do things that jeopardize your image, like speeding, swerving, cutting people off, hard braking, etc. That allows you to deal with the situation promptly so that drivers understand this isn’t acceptable in your company vehicles.

Enhances Record Keeping

Not only is GPS tracking excellent for helping you keep better records related to mileage and fuel efficiency, but it can be instrumental in helping you to have more efficient record-keeping when it comes to things like billing, payroll, creating expense reports, and scheduling vehicle maintenance.

These benefits are, of course, in addition to the many benefits all businesses receive from GPS fleet tracking like maintenance scheduling, more efficient route planning, fuel conservation, reduced labor costs, lower auto insurance premiums, emergency rerouting for weather, traffic, and other emergencies; turn by turn directions for drivers, and countless other large and small benefits only GPS tracking can deliver.

GPS tracking can even be used to help drivers retrace their steps to find missing packages. What you need to know now, is when you’re going to incorporate GPS tracking into all your company cars?

If your company provides company cars to employees, call us here at LiveViewGPS at 1-888-544-0494 to talk about getting GPS tracking for your company cars.

The eastern quoll has been extinct on mainland Australia since the 1960s. New efforts are currently underway to bring these marsupials back to Australia’s shores. The small creatures, roughly the size of a small domestic cat, will be reintroduced into the wilds of Australia beginning in autumn 2018.

Once abundant on the mainland, the eastern quoll has been considered extinct on both the Australian mainland and in the wild since the 1960s. Populations at this time were diminished greatly by a curious epidemic that killed off substantial numbers of their population before foxes and predators killed off the rest. Today, they are only found naturally in Tasmania.

This time, though, the quolls will have a quite a few eyes watching and monitoring their progress to, hopefully, avoid another extinction level event for the small creatures. These efforts will be largely aided by the use of GPS tracking collars that will be attached to the quolls before they are released.

These collars allow researchers to track the quolls, so they can know where they quolls are located, what kinds of habitats they’re living in, and how they are reacting with other quolls. Attentive monitoring also allows research to learn more about what types of landscape offers the best protection for these creatures and how to keep their predators, like foxes and feral cats, at bay.

Why are quolls so important that Australia wants them back? According to Canberra Times, quolls are considered ecosystem “regulators”. They eat a variety of insets and small mammals, keeping these populations under control.

The key for making this project successful lies in giving quolls their best shot at survival. This means offering habitats that foster success, limiting exposure, at least initially, to predators, and providing them with the tools they need to flourish. Fortunately, we already know the eastern quoll can survive in the Australian landscape – as they have done so in decades past.

The project to track the quolls is being largely financed by crowdfunding, which has currently only raised the funds for 13 of the 20 trackers needed to sufficiently track the first round of settlers. Only time will tell if this effort to repopulate a once extinct creature on the Australia mainland will pay off, but it offers stunning scientific possibilities of successful.