Golf carts are not used heavily in Ireland, but they are much more prevalent in other countries, I remember playing golf in the states a couple of years ago and it sparked some ideas about what we could do in this area. Of 5 areas GPS tracking could help:
- Slow play
- Carts entering prohibited areas
- Alerts for stopped carts (potentially could identify incapacitated drivers)
- Battery management
- Recovering stolen carts
Slow play - This solution is pretty simple, we set up a Geofence (as shown in the image below for each hole). If the cart stays within the geofence for over a set period of time, or if it does not reach a geofence in a certain period of time (eg. raise an alert if a cart has not reached the 4th tee 50 minutes after starting)
Carts entering prohibited areas - For example, a cart is not allowed on the greens or not allowed to go across certain fairways. That is a simple geofence entry alert... See the image below, if the cart entered this area an alert would be raised.
Alerts for stopped carts - If a cart does not move for a fixed period of time whilst out on the course, for example, 5 or 10 minutes, maybe something has happened to the driver. An alert could be raised in this instance and the course ranger alerted.
Battery management - Are carts running out of power a problem? In this instance, an alert can be raised to let the course manager know. They notice the cart is low on power and swap it before it runs out of power and blocks the course.
Recovering stolen carts - Pretty obvious one, if a cart ever goes missing it is easy to recover. Alerts could be raised if it goes outside the golf course boundary, there are also options to immobilise the cart.
If anyone would like to discuss this area any more I would be delighted to talk to you, please let me know, send me an email, or contact me through the site.
Photo by Edewaa Foster on Unsplash
