By Dominic B. dela Cruz
Staff reporter
Laoag City—All Laoag City government-owned vehicles will soon be tracked anywhere anytime.
This becomes possible after the city government began installing global positioning system (GPS) kits in the said vehicles.
Laoag information technology officer Franz Reginal Felipe said at least 20 vehicles are already equipped with GPS. He disclosed that vehicles assigned to the engineering officer were the first ones to be tagged.
He admitted that one of the main reasons for the GPS project was the issue about garbage compactors losing fuel. The drivers for said vehicles have already been probed by the disciplinary and separation board.
“Daytoy ket tapnu makita a nalaing no kasanu ken manu a litro iti gasolina iti nataray da base no manu met a kilometro tay nataray da,” Mr. Felipe explained.
He added that with the GPS, the vehicles can be located anytime, anywhere. The vehicles’ speed and direction can also be ascertained.
Aside from garbage compactors, the engineering office has the most number of vehicles assigned by the city government; this include heavy equipment and other construction-related vehicles.
Mr. Felipe explained that the GPS provides information through short messaging system (SMS), or text message and web interphase.
The GPS system can be viewed by Laoag officials, especially the mayor, department heads and the general services office (GSO), which is mostly in charge of all the vehicles.
Mr. Felipe said they plan to put GPS kits on all city government vehicles. However, this still depends on the availability of funds.