Fast arrest thanks to TomTom WORK tracking system

A light-footed opportunist thief in Sheffield has just got his collar felt very quickly thanks to the tracking capability of TomTom WORK’s GO 715 gps navigation system.

The thief struck when the driver of the £30,000 Mercedes Sprinter van belonging to local company Dedicated Couriers left his vehicle for just a few seconds on Tuesday afternoon to get a delivery note signed.

“Despite the vehicle being in a secure compound at a customer’s premises with security staff on duty, the thief was able to make a clean getaway,” said Dedicated Courier’s managing director, Eric Whittaker.

“He was after the van but also thought that he’d got an ordinary gps navigation unit along with it. What he didn’t know was that I could instantly locate the vehicle from my office in the centre of Sheffield thanks to the tracking capability built into the TomTom GO navigation unit.

“This enabled me to relay precise details of the van’s position to the Police and they immediately alerted their helicopter. Within a very short time they had tracked the stolen vehicle down to an area of Rotherham, an arrest was made and our van was recovered intact.

“Interestingly this was not a fixed unit in this vehicle. All of our TomTom GO units are portable and able to be moved easily between any of the 26 vans that we run.

“Our principal reason for using them is to relay collection information direct to the driver without having to call his mobile ‘phone. He can acknowledge the instruction by simply tapping the screen and the unit then directs him by the shortest route to the customer.

“Having a tracking capability built into the TomTom unit is a bonus. And what a good bonus it has proved to be. We got our vehicle back the same day and the Police took a vehicle thief off the streets of Sheffield. Superb result for TomTom WORK and super work by the South Yorkshire Police!”