Beijing taxis turn to tracking

Creation date: 08 October 2008

Thousands of taxis in Beijing are reportedly being fitted with video cameras and satellite tracking technology to help in emergencies. GPS systems help locate the taxi, while pictures and voice recordings help catch suspects.

“It was about two or three months ago. All the taxis in our company had this fitted,” says a representative of one of the city’s largest cab companies. “There is a screen that displays the exact location of the vehicle. The taxi is also able to send information back to us at the control station. All the taxis registered with us have had the modifications.

“We can’t see the video back at the control station but we can do audio surveillance. The GPS signal enables us to hear whatever is happening in the cab,” she adds.

“If anything happens in the cab it will show up on the screen. If anything happens that needs reporting to the police there are people who are hired just to do surveillance. There are more than 100 of them, who are just hired to monitor the in-cab microphones. There are even more of us to control and dispatch the cars.”

In some cities, the cameras are pre-programmed to take at least one picture of every occupant as a back-up in case of later criminal activity.

According to Fireeyes, a Beijing-based company selling GPS technology, Beijing has a budget of 680 million yuan (US$99 million) to complete its installation of satellite tracking equipmentin the city’s taxi-cabs.

The investment in taxi tracking in Beijing provides the latest boost to GPS sales in China following the Olympics when the Beijing authorities spent a total of 1.9 billion yuan (US$278 million) to install GPS tracking systems on all of the city’s 10,000 buses.

 
Source: http://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/news.php?NewsID=7933