SVS Productions are now offering GPS Safety Tracking Services to Rally Events in association with 4Rally.eu
We will be publishing lots more information here over the next weeks and months
Competitors/crews wishing to register their contact details ahead of their next event to speed up the tracker collection process, can enter all their details at this link - Click Here...
Marshals wishing to register their contact details with the safety team in the control room, will soon be able to enter all their details at this link - Coming Soon...
Now available to buy - 4Rally Tracking Control Consoles
Contact us now to purchase your own button console so that you never have to remove and reinstall these again. Once they're fitted, you will only ever need to collect the tracking box.
Many of our aircraft or aerospace enthusiasts will know that each flying machine carries its own little black box so that air traffic control can track each flight, and all data is sent back to control rooms to monitor their progress, and more importantly, respond to emergencies as swiftly as possible to help save lives.
What they may not know is that since 2020, the Irish Rallying equivalent to this is actually a little orange box that does pretty much the exact same thing.
Our sport has seen some terrible accidents in the past, and somewhere lives have been lost as a consequence. Every year, we look at these incidents and ask the following questions:
How can we prevent this from happening again, and,
What can we do to help respond to similar scenarios in the future?
It’s not uncommon for new safety procedures to be introduced following big accidents where lessons had been learned from analyzing the finer details, but two of the most notable safety procedures that competitors must follow religiously are the OK/SOS Board and the introduction
of GPS Safety Tracking Equipment in every single car.
When I am doing a talk on stage or helping with training days, I always use the same story from 2002 when we saw two of our local competitors have a tragic accident in Monaghan one Sunday in April. Their Honda Civic had slipped off the road and ended up at the end of a long trench, up against a large pile of stones. To every car that came across them after that, it looked like they simply slid off the road and got stuck, but unfortunately, little did they realize that the impact was so great that the driver was paralyzed from the waist down and the co-driver lost his life as a consequence of his injuries. Could they have been saved or helped if the next car on the scene had stopped with them? Could emergency services have done anything if they had known sooner? These are questions that cannot be answered, but it did help bring the OK/SOS Board to our sport and has undoubtedly saved many lives ever since.
It is now forbidden to pass a stopped car without seeing that same crew out and holding their OK Board. If you come across a stopped car and they are showing you the SOS Board, then you must stop to render assistance whilst doing your best to raise the alarm and get emergency services sent to that location. If you don’t see any board or any sign, then you must treat it as an SOS scenario and stop to render any assistance you can. When you’re the person stopped and you need help, you are hoping and praying that the next car sees you in need and will come to your rescue. Only thing is, there was still something else missing, and for a long time, we were
relying heavily on the next car to be the answer, but what if the next car didn’t see those in need and didn’t know to stop? What if the incident happened so far off the road or the stage, and cars passed the scene without knowing to stop and help? Unfortunately, we got our answer years later when poor Manus Kelly lost his life in the Donegal International Rally. It took too long to establish what happened, and it took too long to get emergency services to that location, but would it have made any difference? That’s an answer we cannot give, but we must try our best to improve.
So in 2020, the decision was made by Motorsport Ireland to make GPS Safety Tracking mandatory on all Stage Rallies from now on. The contract was tendered out to any and all companies who could provide the service, and the winning package came from a company in
Lithuania called 4Rally. This company specialises in GPS Safety Tracking,
Live Results, Rally Admin Software, and Rally Control Room culture and procedures to help Irish Rallying reach its goals to improve the safety on all events and reduce response times. Local company SVS Productions from Draperstown is contracted to provide local technical and logistical assistance in the running of this system, and this partnership has worked very well for the last 5 years in trying to achieve that goal of fulfilling that missing element that the OK/SOS Board cannot cover. It gives the team in the control room the location and status of every competing car throughout the event so that a team of people can watch over everyone taking part and do their best to better analyze and respond to incidents throughout the event. It also provides the competitors with a direct communication system to the control room where, at the press of a button, they can warn the safety team of an emergency, warn them about a fire, let them know that the road is blocked, or simply advise them that their car has stopped but they are OK and do not require any medical or emergency assistance at that time. The control room can also send warnings in the form of a digital red flag where an alarm and red lights can be turned on in each car affected to warn them that the stage is canceled and it may be due to an incident ahead, or behind them.
Since then, Motorsport UK has followed suit, and now all rallies both across Ireland and the UK must have GPS Safety Tracking as part of their safety systems, but the emphasis must be put on having this as an additional system on top of all the older tried and tested systems that came before it.
We must use all of our resources to help keep our competitors safe and respond to incidents as quickly as possible. Undoubtedly, the trackers have saved lives and brought a world of new resources to safety teams, but they also bring many extra features and resources to rally organizers nationwide. The main control room now connects all elements of a rally from the competitors to the marshals, the timekeepers, and the radio operators, everyone can coordinate and communicate much better and more efficiently than ever before, and it’s evolving and improving year on year as we get used to this new way of approaching things.
Deep and detailed analysis of each rally car and every rally stage now means that we can see where the cars reach their top speeds and can now suggest where safety elements such as chicanes can be better located to keep competitors on their toes, challenged but continuing to lower the average top speed of every event.
Areas identified as having low or no phone signal will also help decide where radio operators should be better placed and how many radios should be needed for improved communication right across every stage.
There are so many things that trackers can help with, and I truly believe that we have only scratched the surface of
its full potential.
In late 2024, 4Rally released their new mobile phone app, which is the new partner of the
tracking system and connects the tracking equipment to the crew's mobile phone. It comes with lots of helpful features such as GPS Trip Meters and Satellite Navigation, info on stage delays and stage blockages. The sky is truly now the limit on what can be achieved with new
improvements coming every year on year. With plans to develop a messaging system and
possibly an early warning system in the future to make competing crews aware of incidents
ahead, are just some of the features that are in the works and we are very excited to see all of these come to fruition. We will continue to work closely with competitors and organizers to see what else we can assist with, and what areas may be improved. The feedback we get is vital but we also look forward to welcoming new people who have a keen interest in our sport and who want to help get involved. Our new Safety Tracking Working Group is designed to train and develop teams of people from all over Ireland to assist clubs with personnel on the day, who can help with all things tracking, and new members are always needed. If you are someone who has an interest and wants to help our sport, then please contact SVS Productions today @ www.svstv.com