Yet the devices could also be used to keep tabs on drivers, an angle the CBC’s Ian Hanomansing explored on Prime Time News on July 17, 1995.

“GPS is the global positioning system, a network of 24 satellites set up by the U.S. military for navigation,” said Hanomansing, helpfully explaining how the system worked to viewers.

“It’s now used by civilians, like boaters and even hikers.”

Close tracking of drivers

Hanomansing explained that at Bel-Air Taxi in Coquitlam, B.C., the GPS system transmitted information about the location of a given cab.

“The dispatcher simply checks the [computer] screen to find out a cab’s location and its status,” he said.

The on-screen diagnostics also showed a dispatcher if the fare meter had been activated.

“It gives us the ability to track the cars wherever they are,” said Darren Pottinger of Bel-Air Taxi.

Identifying ‘cheaters’

Pottinger said the information the GPS provided could help the company call out so-called cheaters — drivers who said they were in one place, but were actually elsewhere.

“A classic example of cheating is when a driver drops the fare off at the airport and then tells the computer he’s actually downtown,” Hanomansing explained.

“What he hopes is, by the time he gets here, he’ll be at the top of the [dispatcher’s] list. But sometimes the call comes when he’s still 15 or 20 minutes away, leaving a customer fuming.”

Sammy Hansra, a local driver, gave an obvious explanation as to why some drivers engaged in this tactic.

“We make more money by cheating,” he told CBC News, though he acknowledged customers got better service if drivers didn’t do that.

A glimpse of the future?

Looking down the road, it seemed that similar technology could be part of all cars on the road, eventually.

“The company that developed the Bel-Air Taxi system predicts that within a few years, virtually every car will have something similar,” he told viewers.

Vari Ghai of Digital Dispatch Systems foresaw a world where GPS technology would let drivers make plans on the fly to meet up with friends and family.

“You might know, as you’re driving down on Highway 99, where your wife is, where your dad is, where your son is,” he said.

“You can see them on the map and … if they’re close enough, you know, you may want to send them a message saying: ‘Hey, maybe we can have coffee together.’ I mean, that is not far-fetched.”

Price-wise, Bel-Air had paid about $600 per cab to add GPS access to those vehicles, according to a Vancouver Sun story published a few months before the Prime Time News report aired.