Track Star AVLS Selected in Ulster County NY

Clinton, NY, December 09, 2009 --(PR.com)-- At a press conference on November 30, 2009, Ulster County Executive Michael Hein announced that Track Star International, Inc. has been selected as the vendor for GPS vehicle tracking systems as the county expands its use of the technology.

The announcement was made at a press conference which included a live demonstration of the Track Star system installed in one of the Ulster County Sheriff Department’s K9 cruisers and in one of the County Highway Department’s snow plows. The demonstration, which included the ability to track the movements of the vehicles in real time as well as the status of equipment such as snow plows, illustrated the functions that will be available to the county as the use of the system is expanded to all county vehicles. The fleet is comprised of 467 vehicles which the county will fully equip by the end of the first quarter of 2010 using a New York State Department of State efficiency grant of $481,000, covering approximately 90% of the total system cost, according to Hein.

The purpose of the system is to enhance worker safety, optimize the operational efficiency of the county vehicle fleet and minimize the carbon footprint of county vehicle operations “By being able to more properly design routes, we can use less fuel. And by properly managing a vehicle, we can ensure a vehicle is not idling and reduce the county’s carbon footprint,” Hein said in his remarks at the press conference. These benefits are provided not only to the county but to the various towns and villages within the county through shared use of the Track Star AVLS system with those other agencies. “This gives us an opportunity to greatly expand that interaction and make sure that we dovetail perfectly with the towns”, said Hein. Ten towns within the county were included in the grant application, permitting them to implement the technology at a much lower cost in the shared deployment. Shawangunk Township Supervisor John Valk, representing the county supervisors association, said that the town is able to implement the Track Star AVLS technology in its fleet of 11 highway department vehicles for $2,000 - $3,000. “And that’s a great bargain,” Valk said.

The Track Star AVLS system has been in Ulster County for some time. It was first installed in the County Sheriff's Department and then expanded to encompass many of the other law enforcement agencies in the county. Ulster Count Sheriff’s Deputy Tom Lattin, who has worked with the system since its inception, said that the system provides information that enhances law enforcement activities and helps the department in its relationship with citizens. “Someone will complain that an officer or deputy or a police officer is speeding past their house unnecessarily and we can prove that they were actually doing 40mph past their house,” said Deputy Lattin.

Track Star President, Michael Hughes, said that the system provides the county with a great deal of information about how vehicles are being utilized. Demonstrating the system at the press conference, Hughes showed that the system displayed the real time movement of a county snow plow and that it was able to show the operational state of the front plow, the wing plow and the salt spreader on the system map display and in a variety of reports. “We know the vehicle’s present location by address, we know its speed, its direction of travel and operational status,” Hughes said as he demonstrated the various functions of the system.

Track Star International, Inc. is a privately held corporation engaged in the development of advanced Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) systems that make use of Global Positioning System (GPS), wireless communication and digital mapping technologies. The company, headquartered in Clinton, NY and with an office in Charlotte, NC, has developed a unique software product that is presently deployed in organizations of all sizes in a number of industries which include government, law enforcement, utilities and energy, emergency response and general transportation. The AVLS product serves to provide increased levels of safety, efficiency and economy to vehicle fleet operators in the US and in a growing number of international locations.

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