[OSM-talk] putting GPS units in taxis

[Andy Deakin]

Hi All,
>
>     Another option is not having the GPRS and just dump the GPX data
>     once you get back the device.
>
>
> +1
>
> That would be my personal recommendation. I once made a small research 
> on the availability of GPRS enabled devices (out f personal interest) 
> and came to the conclusion that they tend to be very expensive for 
> what they do.
We write fleet management and tracking software, so have tested many 
units. The cost is coming down, both for hardware and the GPRS data 
transfer costs. The cheapest packages out there at the moment cost 
around £400 over a three year period (includes hardware, data transfer, 
software etc). Compared to a cheap GPS data logger, this will look 
expensive! But for businesses who want to improve efficiency, save fuel, 
help logistics etc., it is certainly worth it.

Even the fastest trackers can only send data every 3 seconds, Any faster 
and an intermittent GPRS signal can cause a backlog, which falls short 
of the every 1 second suggested for osm data. Even then the data sent 
often does not have all the meta data attached (e.g. HDOP etc) which a 
gpx file or other formats may have and could potentially be useful to osm.

Andy