Words by AndrewIt has been explained to me that if a bike is stolen in the first 9-12 months of that model’s life it will be being stolen to order and is very unlikely to be broken up. After 2years the reason for theft is much more likely to be parts, and so the bike will be broken up, usually very quickly after the event which makes recovery extremely difficult.
So time is of the essence and if the only chance the Police have is from a tip off or catching these rogues through a random stop, it will be far too late for the majority of bikes they have stolen.
The idea of tracking stolen assets has been around the car-security world for more than 10 years, but is only beginning to be associated with motorcycles. It’s main attraction is to be able to get the Police a solid lead very shortly after the theft, before the bike can be broken down and dissipated to the dodgy spare part market.
It appears to be a slightly mis-understood technology, both on terms of what it offers and how it actually works. To attempt to clarify these issues, I have conducted some research into this marketplace.
The ConceptTracking units are there to allow your vehicle to be found using a homing or positioning signal (more of which anon) if it is stolen. You retrieve the vehicle and don’t claim off the insurance and so retain your NCB.
These units are not alarms, and are not intended to act as such but could and perhaps should be used along-side traditional alarm units. The intention is that they are not noticed by the thieves and so they have no idea that their movements are being monitored. If they do know the vehicle is so-equipped, there is a clear incentive to break down the vehicle to locate and destroy the tracking equipment.
The appeal of these systems is this covert nature, and ability to (hopefully) locate and retrieve your beloved motorcycle. It seems that thieves are no longer deterred by the wailing of an alarm largely because the public seem uncaring about such alarms going off. If we assume that the stolen vehicle may be recovered from the thieves directly, it should also help bring these low-lifes to justice.
It must be pointed out, however, that locating your bike is the main aim of these products. Some of the products allow you to track your bike on a website, but the majority don’t and will simply tell you where it is. Once you know where the bike is, recovering it is a different matter and you must consider the trespass laws and whether you can simply march onto someone’s property and retrieve your bike.
First I will explain the technology used, as there are options here, with each providing a slightly different solution. Then I’ll point out the products on the market so you’ll know a little more about which may suit you.
The TechnologyThere are three systems in use at the present time in the motorbike tracking products:
GSM - Mobile phone technology allows a phone unit to be located when registered on the GSM network, effectively all the main players. Phones on any of the main networks can be located and therefore tracked using this signal. GSM signals are quite strong and this system is quite cheap to run as your phone is constantly sending and receiving info from the network, part of which is location, and this happens for free. I understand that specific requests for location are charged like SMS messages, and certainly any movement notification would be sent as an SMS.
The drawback to GSM tracking systems seems to be their accuracy. It is at best likely to provide a 50m location range that will broaden significantly as you move into an area with less transmitter masts.
GPS - We all know about the GPS system (Global Positioning Satellite) from our onboard navigation units and such like. It has (like GSM) being used for vehicle tracking for many years. It’s immediate benefit over GSM is the accuracy of the signal (read location) given, hence it’s use in navigation systems. You won’t find a GSM based navigation system anywhere, which speaks volumes.
GPS transmitters are fairly small and innocuous, like GSM transmitters, but are handicapped by their ‘line of sight’ operation. In practice this means that the receiver must be able to see the sky to be able to communicate with the satellite. And if we remember that in this application the unit would be buried under the fairings/seat/frame of the bike, this signal strength would be handicapped from the start, never mind the bike being slung in a van or garage etc.
Both GPS and GSM units use the ‘triangulation’ concept to fix a location, so both units would have to be able to receive a signal (‘see’ in a GPS unit’s case) from 3 transmitters or satellites.
Radio Frequency (RF) - This system uses a powerful radio (VHF) transmitter signal that is detected by a receiver tuned to the correct wavelength. The advantages are: it doesn’t rely on being able to see or communicate with multiple satellites or masts, the signal is powerful enough to be received through walls and ceilings (ie within buildings/containers/underground car-parks etc) - due in some sense to the unit emitting a signal, rather than receiving one sent from some distance away (inc. outer space).
Accuracy is rated as a few feet but the drawbacks are that the signal doesn’t travel very far when compared to the other types and it has been suggested that the RF units have to be bulkier than the others (due to having to transmit a signal) and that this transmission may be detectable by certain equipment (so the thieves might be aware that your bike has started transmitting).
So those are the options for a tracking unit, some use a combination and one uses all three. As you can hopefully see there are pros and cons to each of them, but in my opinion the GSM based systems are not really practical for recovering your bike.
I will point out that a lot of the GPS units transmit the signal via the GSM network (making it usable in many countries) using a GPRS transmission which is a form of mobile internet connection. Focus on how the location is established, rather than how that data may be sent to you to avoid confusing one system with the other.
Bike Theft Specific ProblemsAs mentioned, tracking units have been and still are very popular and the internet is full of companies offering these products (regardless of the system used).
Please make sure you appreciate that vehicle tracking is used extensively by firms with large car fleets or HGV fleets to ensure that the vehicles are moving as intended and to predict delivery / arrival times. For these type of systems the level of accuracy is not hugely important so they use GSM for low cost and GPS for improved accuracy. While a vehicle is on the road, and remember these tracking systems are not meant to be (especially) covert, line-of-sight with satellites is solved by mounting the receiver on the roof of the vehicle or on the dashboard.
- We are talking about finding a bike that may be hidden in one of 20 lockup garages, or in one of 50 containers, in the back of a van being driven through the city. Our location needs to be reliable and very accurate.
- The size of the unit is important. All these units will require a battery to operate (or as back up should the bikes battery be disconnected) and even these days batteries are quite large, especially when we consider how small the current sports bikes are getting. There can’t be a lot of space in some of today’s bikes and you wouldn’t fit these units under the seat like a lot of alarms are!
- Durability is also much more relevant than for car/truck based units, where the device is unlikely to be ‘hanging out in the breeze’. On a bike it is likely to be battered senseless by vibrations and stiff suspension, soaked, baked and frozen by our lovely climate and huge engines. Condensation and interference from the bike’s ECU (remember it will never be far from it on a 6ft long bike) are other factors that I know have caused the designers problems, or ones that they should have taken into account.
- Detectability requirements further hamper the design, certainly in terms of size. These units will be no use if the thief removes your seat and sees a box there with ‘Tracking unit - do not remove’ written on it. Likewise your mechanic should not need to remove it to change the spark plugs or oil filter.
- Activation is also important. Some units will arm automatically once the ignition is turned off and rely on a motion sensor to detect that the theft is underway (Tracker Monitor for example) whereas others will require you to ring the company and inform them of a theft (e.g. Tracker Retrieve). The latter appeals less as you may not detect the theft for hours perhaps even days afterwards, which limits the likelihood of a successful recovery.
- What will happen when the theft occurs? I have only talked to three companies about this and it is something that you would need to be very confident about. As mentioned earlier, you cannot just wander into someone’s property or bust open their garage door because you know or think (remember the accuracy issue?) your bike is inside. There are laws about this and even criminals have rights.
The police are really the only people with the ability to do this and so you would be looking for some connection (either direct as with Tracker Ltd, or indirectly) with them once your bike is located. It is unlikely that these companies are going to bust down doors on your behalf, so be clear about how recovery is made.
The ProductsThis is not intended to be a definitive list, merely one that a bit of digging on the internet has supplied.
Tracker Network (UK) LtdBased in Uxbridge, this company has been producing car units for over 10years and it’s name is now synonymous with these type of products. They market two products for the motorcycle market and both use only the RF system:
- Tracker Monitor tm
- Tracker Retrieve tm
The Monitor is the more pricy (£400) than the Retrieve (£300) but it compensates by being an ‘active’ unit that detects when the theft occurs and transmits a signal back to Tracker Ltd who notify you and the Police. The Retrieve is passive, and you have to notify them first.
They have a 24hr control centre who ring you to confirm that you’re not moving the bike yourself (for Monitor systems) or you ring if you have the Retrieve unit. The control room then contacts the police who then activate their receivers.
I’ve spoken to them at length about these units and they claim that the unit is accurate to 3ft and works undercover (containers, car parks etc.). They also said that their last audited figures show a 95% recovery rate that has seen 1800 arrests made. While these figures are likely to include car systems (I can’t remember to be honest) they said has only been one bike, a ZX10r, that couldn’t be recovered although he wouldn’t expand on why (stripped down and the unit located?).
Tracker Network (UK) Ltd are also the only supplier of these products who are certified to supply the tracing units to the Police force. That is to say the entire Police force in the UK and in fact the French and most recently the Spanish forces have signed up too. This process is extremely stringent and has to meet all manner of requirements for both the transmitter (on the bike) and the receiver in the car / helicopter / fixed wing plane. Perhaps you’ve seen patrol cars (usually the Traffic Unit cars) with four ariels on the roof, that’s a Tracker equipped car, and every force has some.
The upshot is that the police can locate your bike from a rough distance of 5miles (terrain dependant) which includes ‘up’ for the flying police vehicles, once Tracker notify them of an active unit.
It has been stated by some of LB’s members who are policemen that certain forces regularly do sweeps to detect any active units without being notified to do so by Tracker themselves. The service is supplied on a subscription basis, the first year being included in the price of the unit. It is roughly £100 per annum although there is a lifetime subscription option.
The unit is not, however, transferable to another bike, but the ownership is. This means that you sell it as part of your bike and the new owner can register and start subscribing. They are one of the more expensive solutions, but are the only company to advertise that Green Flag will return your bike to you no matter where in the UK you are, and that a uniformed guard will stand by it until this happens.
Further details are available through their website and I’ve found them to be a very helpful and interested company.
Samtrac-06This product is the brainchild of AutoLek UK (avoid-it.com) who are an established auto-electrics company specialising in any and all vehicle systems. The owner and MD of the business Steve Ford spoke at some length about his passion for stopping bike thieves getting away with our (he is a biker) pride and joys.
It is about the same initial price as a Tracker Monitor system (fitting is extra) but the running costs are less.
Based on a GPS signal for location and a GSM network for communication between the bike and AutoLek, it claims to be as accurate as the Tracker unit but packs more features. For instance it will notify you of power drains from the bike’s battery and exactly what has happened to trigger an alert.
The GPS basis also provides add-ons for navigation etc and although the GPS suffers from having to have a line-of-sight to the satellites, the unit is designed to notify you of it’s last location once the signal is lost. Steve claimed that, for instance, it may lose the signal in your garage, but as it is wheeled out it will send a signal and a location if it ‘sees’ the sky. Once removed from the van, another signal is sent with the current location and so on.
As you may imagine it requires the purchase of a SIM card to perform these text alerts, and a pay-as-you-go is best, just keep topping it up. I believe that this is a great example of someone with the knowledge and bottle to set up a system that looks very competent, and appears a firm favourite of MCN.
I didn’t really push Steve on how exactly are the bikes recovered but I suspect that they (along with all the others except Tracker Ltd) would use Bailiffs to do the door ‘opening’.
Recently a thread was posted in LB about an example of this company’s work but it was only one example and I find it hard to imagine that someone who has invested a 6 figure sum in this product would sling them onto a bike in such an unlikely way as a matter of procedure.
CATS Eye by Symmetry3 LtdThis company has, like the others, a history in asset tracking and they claim to be a Telemetry specialist first and foremost. Telemetry simply being the idea of measuring something from a distance, as opposed to measuring it while standing next to the object.
For us, we need to measure the distance of our bike from us, in other words its location. Lee Walkey, their MD, contacted me as a result of my enquiries about motorcycle tracking and had some good news for me. They are developing a tracking unit that utilises all three of the tracking systems, GSM mobile, GPS and RF signalling - the intention being that which ever signal is clearest is the one that gives location.
The unit appears to be very small (Mars bar size) and from pictures seen may well be slightly modular which will doubtless increase its ‘fitability’ into the modern sportsbike. They claim to have worked with various police forces around the country to recover assets with their CATS Eye system in it, so clearly the lack of a Tracker Ltd - type connection to the Police does not prevent successful asset recovery. Their website is of little value regarding motorbike tracking, due no doubt to the very recent development of this unit.
Some members of LB are currently in negotiations with Lee about running the unit as a trial before the product is officially launched later in the year. The cost of the unit is estimated to be around the £250 mark with a small subscription £3-£5 pcm for the monitoring of it. These prices are subject to change as the product nears release.
I think this could very well prove a run-away success for Symmetry3, assuming that the unit is robust enough and can receive / transmit for long and far enough given its very small dimensions.
Mtrack Online by Automated System Services LtdThis little know product sounds very interesting. It is a portable, weatherproof, compact (125mm by 70mm) and therefore discreet unit that runs entirely off it’s own battery (4 yr life estimated). It can be programmed via SMS to react to various stimuli, namely movement, and can even be set up remotely for power drain etc.
With complete portability and no installation fee (at least by them!) it seems a very tempting proposition. The unit relies on GSM and RF tracking systems, so the GSM will give an approx location and the RF signal would then be used to home in on it. The unit transmits its location 5 times every 24hrs, but can be set to do this more often at the expense of battery life.
ASS Ltd have a free-phone National Recovery Team (not sure whether they are in house or contracted) who go and look for your bike and the first 12months recovery is included in the £375 price. There is a £10pcm monitoring subscription there after. This unit is designed to be portable from asset to asset, and further investigation would be needed to ascertain how it would be fixed satisfactorily to a bike, but it sounds like a possible solution.
T-Trac by T-Trac (UK) LtdThis unit was designed for motorcycles initially, rather than being a cut down car unit, and has a unique feature that the other brands do not.
T-TRAC comes with an electronic validation tag which is registered to your vehicle and its T-TRAC unit; this must be carried by the driver/rider when operating the vehicle. Should your vehicle be moved or tampered with when the tag is not present, the unit will alert our SOC (Secure Operating Centre) who in turn will alert you.
What this means, is that if your vehicle is protected by T-TRAC, the moment there is any unauthorised movement or ignition of your vehicle, you will be alerted immediately. T-TRAC eliminates the shock and delay of discovering a theft has taken place long after the event itself.
This unit operates along similar lines to the Tracker Monitor system and they claim to assist the local police force in recovering your machine. It is however, a GPS location system and must therefore have all the pros and cons of that, namely very accurate locating providing the unit can ‘see’ at least 3 satellites.
The cost of this unit is a mighty £499 with a substantial £140 p.a. subscription. I have a feeling that this will come down shortly as Tracker knocked £100 off their prices in February of this year, leaving this one much more expensive.
RAC TrackstarThis is a GPS only unit, and is only available (as of Feb06) for cars
Datatool SnitcherThis device is getting a lot of press at the moment, and it does have it’s good points. But please do not confuse this with a proper tracking device. It is not.
It is designed to be an alarm system that notifies you via an SMS rather than an audible alert on the bike. This is a reasonable idea but I would question the likelihood of always having your phone near you, set loud enough to hear, and that a text alert would wake you in the dead of night.
Datatool do offer the option of tracking your bike once it has gone, but this is a GSM only signal that frankly is nowhere near precise enough to be of any real use.
So what to do?You have to decide that for yourselves. But you must do something more than an alarm and a ‘std’ chain or lock.
Remember your response last time you heard an alarm ringing up the street. Did you rush out and investigate? No? Me neither. Alarms are no use in the war against bike theft. Too often ignored, too obvious (stickers, flashing lights, beep beeps etc), therefore too easily silenced (many bike thieves carry thick duvets in their vans to wrap the bike in to silence it and protect it in the van).
“But I’ve a £100 chain from a leading manufacturer that got 5 stars in the magazine?”
I’m pretty sure that we’ve all heard of Almax chains by now, and the fuss they kicked up at the NEC 05 by cutting through all the other bike chains on the market in seconds as a publicity stunt to launch their home made chains. If you haven’t, why not? Are you too busy reading up how to pull a wheelie or preoccupied searching for the latest rearsets or indicators?
At the present time there doesn’t appear to be a better chain than the Almax, nor a better lock that the two offered by them. It is not without it’s problems tho, weight being one and size of links another. Anything substantial is gonna be heavy, and the link size stops the majority of the heavy duty bolt croppers from getting through it. But that means you can’t thread it through frames and swingarms as easily as the smaller chains. Check out LB’s directory for them and remember to mention us for a £10 discount.
If we say that a top notch chain will deter many thieves, then keeping the bike out of sight will double that effect. Obviously a garage is ideal, or even the front room!, but not many of us have these options in London. So put a cover on the bike and chain that down too. Should they cut through the chain (and angle grinders are noisy and extremely visible things to use due to the accompanying shower of sparks) then you need some indication that the bike is on the move.
Of the units mentioned here, some are based upon you notifying their call centre. This seems fundamentally flawed to my mind, and I think a Datatool Snitcher could help fill that requirement to some degree. Ideally though, I’d look for a unit where they ring me which should be harder to sleep through.
Once the bike is away in a van then these tracking units aim to come to your assistance. How many reports have we read about bikes disappearing and thoughts immediately turning to replacing it. Wouldn’t it be ideal to get it back and perhaps get the perpetrators arrested into the bargain? I think so.
My hope (should the worst happen) is that I’ll be called and asked if I’m moving the bike. I look outside to see a van pulling out of the driveway. The call centre on the other end of the phone then notifies the police who turn on the receiver in the helicopter and traffic cars who pinpoint the van and move in before the bike even gets back to the baddies’ lair. Perhaps they hang back and catch the rest of the gang. Time will be of the essence as it won’t be long before the thieves strip every bike as a matter of habit, but I really don’t believe that the scum who do the nicking are likely to strip it in the van as it drives along. It’ll be done at base-camp if it all. And the police should have them by then.
Clearly we don’t live in an ideal world, but the technology is getting there and developments like Symmetry3’s unit bode for a very exciting future for us, not the rogues. Which makes a pleasant change.
Related Linkswww.motorcycletracking.infowww.mtrackonline.co.ukwww.tracker.co.ukwww.t-trac.co.ukwww.symmetry3.comRelated Directory ItemsAlmax Security Chains
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