Improved Limousine Efficiency With GPS
GPS Global Positioning System, has greatly improved the driving and navigational system for private citizens, and it has also led to tremendous advances in quality service provided by limousine owners and drivers. GPS technology is available to drivers as an “automotive navigational system.” This is a satellite based navigation system, which integrates positional information about the user’s location, with maps stored on the system’s data base. The system can then determine the map location of the individual, and provide real time accurate information about the best street route to reach a location. Information can them be displayed on a screen in a variety of formats.
There are a variety of buying options, when choosing an automotive guidance system. Different makes will vary in the type of display, as well as the type of information provided by the device, such as road traffic conditions, accident location, stop area, gas stations and restaurants . Newer systems will provide the information through a series of voice prompts, which can be very helpful when driving at night or in difficult traffic conditions that make it dangerous to look away from the road. The four basic qualities which differ from unit to unit, and which are important buying considerations, are: screen size and sound, memory size and the ability to download updated maps, the time from prompt to display, and the ability or not of the unit to speak out street names.
Limousine companies have reported great advances in the quality of service, since instituting automotive navigational systems. Now that limousine drivers have no need to stop and look for directions, the ride is smoother and uninterrupted. Luxury Limousine & Transportation in Metro New York City reported a 50% decrease in customer complaints after installing a GPS system in each of their limousines. They also reported a qualitative increased operational efficiency. Drivers are no longer late to a destinations, because with GPS, they never lost. There is increased punctuality, as well as a significant time savings because dispatchers no longer have to take a long time giving out directions. Luxury Limo in New York estimated they are saving as much as 1,500 hours a month since installing the TeleNav system. Employees are happier with an automotive navigational system, because the driving experience is more enjoyable. And dispatchers can devote more time to money generating activities.
I asked Sam Tlecani the owner and chief driver of Pyramids Limo, a Denver Limousine and Denver Airport Transportation service, what the addition of automotive guidance systems has meant to his Denver Limo business. He told me the story of a recent fare from the airport to a small town in northern Colorado. The customer was coming in from New York and had never been to the relative’s house. Sam just switched on his GPS guidance system, and the customer sat back and relax while the GPS guided Sam flawlessly to the destination.
