hmmm.....how can I do this?
 

right. imagine that there were two people that were going to drive the same route. they both had to start at point A, visit point B and end up at point C. how can they verify their start and finish times to me and how can they verify that they visited point B on the way? and also, how can they verify that they did the drive in their car and NOT a bike? and how can i verify the date that they did the drive on?
The solution needs to be cheap and acurate. I can visit point B before the people drive to it, to place items at the location for them to verify when they reach point B, but I can't think of anything other than the people sending me a multimedia message of the car at the location with whatever I left previously in the picture too.

I know all of this makes close to no sense whatsoever but please bear with me, I just need some help with the solution to the problem at the moment! I can tell you more later!

Thanks for your mindpower,


Andy

Are there people at points A, B, and C? Or any stores?

Your drivers can check in with someone or you can have them purchase a specific cheap item and present you with the register receipt which should give store name, date and time.

no people at points a b or c. thats what is making it such a problem. I have just found a system thats on the market soon that uses a dedicated gps box that will go in each vehicle and will record and then map the journey of the vehicle. the biggest issue that i can see is how the poeple can verify that their vehicle was at points A B and C


Any Ideas?
I was perhaps thinking of setting up a remote webcam at points A, B and C that they have to drive up to in order to make themselves and their car visible and in doing so verify that they were at that point at that time/date. problem with that is A. cost (although probably not too much) and location of cams. (big problem!) I really want to try and get to a point where the validation side of things is pretty much fully automated and does not rely on any third parties.


hmmmm........

Andy

Andy,

It would really help if you told us what you are up to.

Are you trying to set up an employee/vendor tracking system?

Some sort of security system?

A rally or easter egg hunt?

In my old building the security gaurds had to "authenticate" their rounds.

Placed about the building where small encoded discs, about the size of a coin, they were glued to walls, door frames etc...

Each disc had a unique code, the gaurd had a small hand held device that they placed against the discs and it registered the day and time that this happened.

So you could basically follow the route the gaurd took around the building. You just read the output of the device and corellated it with the location of the discs.

Unfortunately you won't know if your drivers used a car or bike.

Id like to tell you more about what I'm planning but I really can't!
you may be able to sus out the basics of it but I'm not allowed to say! (not just yet anyway).
An ideal situation would be that these people contact me, I give them a GPS box that tracks and verifies their route (so that I can verify that they started at point A, visited B and ended up at C, and it took them however long it took) and they somehow prove to me that they used a car for that journey. If i could sus out how to do that, I would be sorted.
The real key to the whole thing is for it to be nice and simple and pretty anonymous so that the people don't need to do much to verify themselves, but at the same time it needs to be accurate so that the same people are happy that there is no room for error and that the whole system is fair.


Andy

One way would be to know the exact mileage between a, b and c. Of course accuracy of odometers varies.

Hi Hugh, there isn't any set route between a b and c so that would be tricky.


Andy

OK so you are doing a Canon Ball Rally thing. But not everyone will be "starting" at the same time or possibly on the same date.

You need to make sure they are not cheating.

You need to look into lorry tracking solutions.

http://www.vericomtech.com/main/index.php

Hmmmm. What if they were equipped with cell phones? They call you once they arrive at point X. They can answer a question only if they're at the location (scenery, object, tree, color of house, etc.). If they have a camera/cell phone, they can also validate their mode of transportation.

Obviously, this requires some interaction.

Hope this helps,
Sherwood

cell phone for each driver. they call you, and you tell them to take a picture of themselves with the car. but you tell them what to do to prove they are on the phone at the right place. for instance:

"i'm here!"
"ok, take a picture of yourself holding three fingers up, oh, and stand next to the oaktree, and call me from point C."

whatever unique. pinch your nose with left hand, whatever. a dated newspaper would help too.

Have 2 large (cant be carried on bike) locked suitcases at B, each containing half a moblie phone number (hidden).
At C are:
(1) the keys to the cases
(2) the location within the suitcase of the first half of the phone number
(3) the other half of the phone number.

First to call you wins.

Just get them to take a picture with a mobile phone of their car with something specific in the background (a building/ bilboard/ park bench etc). they can then show you the pic on their return and you can see the date/time stamp of the picture on the file.

follow them with black helicopters.

Dantilla, you've cracked it.

911MOT, i like the idea of the large items being carried in the vehicle. perhaps a large item with the GPS unit fixed to it/inside it? like a 3ftx2ft piece of MDF with the GPS bolted to it! that aint gonna be easy to strap to a bike!


Andy

With this:

http://www.vehicle-tracking.com/products/3100.html

Jim,

thats the sort of tech that I want to use for the GPS tracking. my real problem seems to be a way of ensuring that the people use a car for the route and not a bike.

Any Ideas?


Andy

mmm, sounds like the makings of a fun race... what's the prize?

The prize? Apparently, a large item in your car.

hmmm, even big girls need lovin' right? :D

You indicated cheap and accurate...

Have the drivers weigh in at a commercial scale. You'll have time, date, location, and weight (bike v. car), all on one ticket.

http://www.catscale.com/locator.shtml

A buddy of mine weighed his 911 free of charge. Broke up their monotony during the off peak I guess.

Good luck!

edit: Oops, I see you are in U.K. Nevermind the link, but the concept should work.

Dave, the prize? hmmmm...don't know yet.

Dantilla, you are a piss taker!

Bob, good idea! trouble is that the people involved will probably be participating late at night/early in morning so im thinking that they wont want to hang around for the wheighbridge to open.


Any other ideas people?

As I understand the problem - you need to authenticate the actual whereabouts of the drivers and they are to hit 3 places to accurately authentcate the time they "hit" that spot. There are some items that are used all the time that meter the activation of the user.
1) ATM machines
2) Drive up Take out (on the receipts)
3) Over night deliveries sign off
4) Wired Money sign off

Is it possable to employ these into the rally? I know in the states drive up take out will not allow bicycles or walk-ups.

If someone embarks on this and cheats, shame on them. Odometer is the answer, no?

For the data collection at the checkpoints....try RFID Tags. You can have reader systems setup. No monitoring nessasary. Give everyone a passive tag that can be read/written wirelessly. You can log timestamps and all kinds of info. If you would like more info PM me. I work with RFID for a living.

For the Car vs. Bike... You could make the tag "locked" onto the vehicle and the reader semi-mobile. Or you could have the reader also interface to a digital camera that takes a picture when the person checks in at the stop. I could probably come up with quite a few more ideas if you would like.

Mike H, love the idea of an ATM, that would be a more or less bullit proof way of verifying a check point. the only real issue i have is the car/bike thing.

Tobster, im pm'ing!

Andy

One way to approach the bike/car issue.

Make sure that the route from a-b-c is not longer than a-c.

In other words don't make a and c the start/end point.

That way they have no choice but to use the car.

You need to plan it so they can't get the car from a to c by bypassing b faster than following the route through a-b-c .

Make sense?

I think the point of this driving challenge will be to get it done some way, some time, but not necessarily w/ people watching, so bringing and showing the car at the finish won't be necessary.

What’s the advantage of using a bike? Are you talking about a bike you peddle? Or a motorbike?

i would think that a bike would cut down the course time considerably

even if you have to go slow in the traffic areas, intersections etc (maybe not, b/c it looks like this would be something done late at night), the bike can get to a faster speed, quicker, than a car

joel, you got it.
Joel F, its motorbikes vs cars thats the issue-im thinking what joel is thinking- bikes will wind it up on the motorways AND will have the advantage in traffic i need to ensure that people use cars and not bikes, otherwise its an unfair advantage

stomachmonkey, i dont get it!

Andy

I assumed your concern was that someone would start at point (a), drive around the corner, park the car and hop on a bike, run the route and hop back into the car close to the end (c). Points (a) and (c) were monitored.

That's why you needed to verify the car at point (b) which is unmonitored?

If the route were a "straight" line they'd have no choice but to use the car.

Scott

To insure they're not on a motorcycle, require each car to begin with X gallons in their tank. Provide directions/mileage that end at a gas station (point B) upon which they must fill their tank with more than 5 gallons, pay with their credit card and keep the receipt. They use this to prove a 4-wheeled vehicle was used. If a motorcycle can hold more than 5 gallons, increase the minimum fill-up to 10.

Boy, a lot of brain-power has been exerted over this. Are we all knuckleheads or haven't you come to a workable solution yet?

Sherwood

great idea, 7-8 gallons should cover it. if you pay w/ a credit card you'll also get a receipt w/ the time stamp, right?

sherwood, one of the main issues with this is that I can't be visiting people beforehand or placing bodies at checkpoints to verify stuff etc. it needs to be completely stand alone so that I can simply send persons 1 and 2 some hardware and a set of instructions. i think that the GPS technology is accurate enough to prove that they started and finished at the locations that i gave them at the time that they told me, which gets the whole issue of who the winner is dealt with, its just the problem of cheating by using a bike over a car (which Im thinking is a faster option pretty much every time if you can ride well) I need to be able to monitor and verify everything remotely, which is what the GPS will let me do, but how do I stop people using a bike? at the moment the only solution is to send each person the GPS unit fixed to something large enough so as to be too big to transport on a bike i.e. a 4ftx2ft piece of board, and as much as it would probably do the trick, its a sort of rubbsih solution!

Scott, as i explained above to sherwood, the idea of the setup is to make it a stand alone system. in an ideal situation I would send persons 1 and 2 a GPS unit and some instructions, they drive the route (when they choose to, as long as its within the specified dates) which the GPS verifies, they send the GPS box back to me, I process the data and declare one of them the winner. i was planning on a route that was a good few hours long with a start point and end point far away from each other, rather than a loop.


Andy

I like the idea of using a fuel reciept to verify date, time and location (I would think) I was thinking about seeing how good some of these 1 mega pixel camera phones are and perhaps arming each person with one and getting them to take a photo of the car at a pre chosen fuel station (not a problem at night, lots of artificial light). they send the phone back to me with the GPS box and a fuel reciept.


Andy

Camera phone would work.

Require them to email the photo straight from the phone immediately after they take the photo.

Otherwise they can still photoshop the image and replace it in the cameras memory.

Remember that a low resolution image can be easier to fake, the more detail the harder to hide the touch up.

im thinking perhaps a high end 1.3meg camera phone with flash locked in a 24hour access safe storage centre, people arrive at storage centre, turn on the phone, take a couple of shots, send them to me, turn the phone off, continue on the way to point C.


Andy