Less talk, more action

Since its establishment in October 1996 by Pierre de Clerk, Tracker's mission has always been to "do something about crime, rather than just talk about it" - a promise that has been woven into the fabric of the organisation over the past decade. FAnews spoke to Gareth Crocker, Communications Manager for Tracker, to find out more.

Tracker has grown from a zero base in 1996, to almost half a million vehicles under its protection in 2007. The company owns and maintains its own multi-million rand national recovery network (terrestrial and satellite) with recovery capabilities throughout South Africa, covering 98% of the population, and in neighbouring territories such as Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique.

Tracker is the only vehicle tracking company to partner with the SAPS and has its recovery technology fitted to more than 1 200 vehicles and 42 aircraft. The company has recovered more than 36 000 stolen and hijacked vehicles, arrested more than 6 800 criminals and shut down more than 300 chop shops and crime syndicates – the most, on any score, of any vehicle tracking company on the continent.

Partnership for success

"Tracker is extremely proud of the partnership it enjoys with the SAPS. While Tracker has its own recovery force, the SAPS gives Tracker access to the country's largest and most skilled recovery force," says Crocker. "While the police often do come in for criticism, what people don't realise is that we equip their patrol units (dog units, flying squads, etc.) with a tool that almost guarantees success for them.

"People have a misperception that the SAPS are overworked in many areas and may not have the resources and the manpower to respond to Tracker activations. In fact, the opposite is true. When a Tracker signal is emitted, we will often have half a dozen or more SAPS vehicles tracking it because they know that there is a good chance they can make an arrest."

And, it's worth remembering that a vehicle criminal is often involved in other forms of violent crime such as armed robberies, rapes, cash heists and murders. We believe one of the key factors separating Tracker from the other vehicle tracking companies is the fact that, due to our formal partnership with the SAPS, we are able to operate with the power of arrest."

Inside the criminal mind

Tracker is continually developing its technology to stay ahead of the criminals, but its continued success and recovery rate suggests that even the older technology is still working extremely well. "The key for us is responding as quickly as possible to an activation and understanding how a vehicle criminal thinks and what his modus operandi is," explains Crocker. "For example, a current trend for hijackers is to hijack a vehicle and drive it to a pre-determined public place such as a shopping centre, airport, hospital, parkade, etc. where he can then watch the vehicle from a safe distance to see if a tracking company arrives to pick it up.

"After a couple of hours, once he believes that the vehicle has ‘cooled down' and no-one is coming to collect it, he then returns to the vehicle. However, knowing this, Tracker will often not immediately recover a vehicle in this situation and will also stake it out. We will, in fact, wait for the criminal to return so that, not only is the vehicle recovered, but we make an arrest as well."

All in a days work

Some of the exceptional recoveries that Tracker has been involved in certainly make for interesting reading. It has successfully recovered one customer's vehicle 12 times in five years, with nine separate arrests. "We submitted the case to Guinness in the United States in an attempt to have it registered as a World Record, but unfortunately a suitable category does not exist. However, officials at Guinness replied that they believe it is a world record."

Tracker also recently recovered a vehicle that had been used in a cash-in-transit heist. There was R20-million lying on the back seat.

Impact on the insurance industry

"We estimate that our 36 000 recoveries have saved the country between R3.5 and R4-billion in vehicle replacement costs alone," says Crocker. "The fact that we recover so many insured vehicles also means that we have been able to maintain and, in some cases, lower insurance premiums for the consumer.

"The insurance industry has always been especially important in our business model and we try to remain as close to the industry as possible. We believe that we are in a rather rare position of enjoying a three-way symbiotic relationship which can perhaps be summarised as follows: when insurers recommend that a Tracker be fitted to a vehicle, we obviously benefit from that business, but in turn we play a critical role in reducing risk for the insurer while protecting the customer and his or her family and lowering the theft and hijack portion of his or her monthly insurance premium. This way, all three parties benefit."

Innovations

As part of LoJack, the global leaders in vehicle tracking, with some 29 operations throughout the world, Tracker's technology is the market leader in many developed countries such as the UK, France and the United States, as well as in other nations where vehicle crime is rampant such as Brazil, Argentina and Columbia. "Given our problem with vehicle crime in South Africa, Tracker is considered one of the top operations worldwide and is often consulted on a number of issues. Last year, Tracker was voted the top LoJack licensee in the world."

Tracker's latest technology is also powering new developments in fleet monitoring and telematics. An example of this is Hollard's ‘Pay as you Drive' insurance offering, for which Tracker provides the technology through its SkyTrax product range. Tracker has also now merged with MobileData, and they now have different product offerings.

A view to the future

"Our focus for the short and medium term will remain on vehicle tracking but will expand dramatically into vehicle monitoring for fleets and telematics, as the technology evolves," says Crocker. "Tracker is very fortunate in so far as we own our own technology development company which enables us to develop products ourselves so we don't necessarily have to wait for new technology from countries such as the US or China, particularly with regards to telematics. We have some very exciting technology developments and product offerings in the pipeline which, we believe, will catapult our business to another level." Criminals, beware.