What Location Data Cannot Tell You
Questions routinely asked of a tracking system that it cannot answer, and where the real answer is.
A position record answers a narrow question precisely. Asked wider ones, it produces confident numbers that are wrong.
Whether someone is working
It shows a vehicle at a location. It does not show what the person was doing, whether the job was done, or whether it was done well.
A van parked outside a customer's house for two hours could be a difficult repair, a long wait for a part, or a conversation with a frightened elderly customer that was the most valuable thing that happened that week.
Where to look instead: job outcomes, first-time fix rate, customer response.
Whether someone is honest
It shows a discrepancy between a record and a position, and discrepancies have ordinary explanations: a wrong address on the job sheet, a vehicle swap, a phone left behind, a fix taken indoors.
Acting on an apparent discrepancy before asking is how employers lose cases they thought were straightforward.
Where to look instead: ask the person. The explanation is usually immediate.
Who is most productive
Rounds differ. Urban and rural, hard jobs and easy ones, new customers and familiar ones.
A comparison between drivers measures the allocation, not the drivers.
Where to look instead: aggregate round analysis, and the judgement of whoever sees the work.
Why the round overran
It shows that it did, and where the time went in blocks.
It does not show why, and the causes are usually access, parts, scheduling or a job that was quoted wrongly.
Where to look instead: ask the driver, which takes ten minutes and produces the actual reason.
Whether a customer was visited
It shows a vehicle within a radius of an address at a time.
Within thirty metres in an urban street, that radius covers several buildings.
Where to look instead: the job record, a customer confirmation, a photograph of the completed work — paired with the location event rather than replaced by it.
What it does support
Dispatch: where is the nearest available vehicle.
Attendance: was a vehicle at this site at this time, within a stated accuracy.
Safety: where is this person now, when an alarm is raised.
Cost: how far was driven, how long.
Four questions answered reliably, and defending that boundary is what keeps those four trusted.
How to redirect a request
Say what the data does support.
Name the better source for what was asked.
Where no source exists, say so — that is a finding about the operation rather than a failure of the tracking system.
Do not produce a weak figure because a figure was requested. It will circulate without its caveat and return as an expectation.
Do not produce the weak figure
The discipline that keeps the rest credible.
When asked for something the data cannot support, saying so is the answer.
A number produced anyway will circulate without its caveat and return as an expectation.
In this field it will also appear in a disciplinary meeting, where the person is entitled to ask how accurate it is.
Say what the data supports, name the better source, and stop there.
An implementation prompt
During configuration, employee productivity reports can prompt questions about fields, ownership and output. Confirm current capabilities and document each plan, integration or policy assumption.