Article Preview
Top1. Introduction
Governments around the world are striving to improve their operations and reduce their service cost. One of the new trends is the implementation of new technologies into the administrative and operational systems. To achieve such goals, governments are using wireless systems to track vehicles and control expenses. Such systems bring efficiency, effectiveness and reduced costs. Still, employees, managers and executives, might perceive them differently. While many governments have made substantial progress in adopting the concept of Internet of Things (IoT) in a form of tracking systems (Wet-News, 2019), Jordanian government started to use it just recently. One of the most important tracking systems used is the vehicle tracking system (VTS), which uses different technologies such as sensors, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), GPS (geographical positioning system), or LBS (Location Based System) to track fleets and objects.
The vehicle tracking system utilizes many types of electronic devices, where they are similar in their tracking functions but different in the characteristics and mechanisms of action (Mukhtar, 2015). Major classifications focused on passive vs. active systems. The passive system saves the location of information in an internal storage, where it is accessed when the vehicle is available at sight. The active system can transmit the location of information in real time (Kamel, 2015), where the location and information of vehicle are tracked and managed instantly. Finally, the hardware needed to provide real-time functionality includes receivers, sensors and chips, and is operated by a software that manages both the system and the communication network (Radinski & Mileva, 2015).
Public sector institutions are implementing Wireless Tracking Systems (WTS) to improve their operations and enhance the control over their vehicles. They anticipate cost reductions and substantial improvements in vehicle fleet management (VFM). Still, different stakeholders have different perceptions regarding the utilization of such systems. Top management perceives WTSs as strategic systems that add value and reduce cost. On the other hand, employees perceive such systems as invading their privacy and causing health problems. Such contradictory perspectives call for more investigation by research to understand the adoption of such systems.
This study explored the application of IoT (in the form of WTS) in Water Authority of Jordan, where a multi-method approach was followed. The study pursued two research questions. First, a set of structured interviews (survey and open questions) were conducted to explore managers’ perspectives on the area. Second, drivers filled a survey to probe their perspectives on the topic. Both instruments were based on a solid literature review to assimilate the factors that will influence the satisfaction with such systems.
RQ1: What are the perceptions of managers regarding the use of IoT (in the form of vehicles’ tracking system) in WAJ?
RQ2: What are the perceptions of drivers regarding the use of IoT (in the form of vehicles’ tracking system) in WAJ?
The following section depicts the literature review, where a sub-section on IoT and tracking system is reported. The second sub-section included the related studies that cover the following variables: perceived usefulness, privacy, and trust and their influence on satisfaction when using vehicles’ tracking systems. Finally, a subsection on the tracking systems in WAJ is covered. The next few sections include research method details, data collection, data analysis and discussion, conclusions, implications, and future work.