Police in Brussels have started using bait bikes, which are GPS tracked bikes that when stolen lead the police to the criminals.
I look forward to the evaluation of this project, as so many cities are plagued by bike theft. Could this be the remedy?
(New story from January this year)
@randahl I've thought about this concept, not least through having a number of nice bikes stolen - I think the only way we can get the police to act on this is if many bikes are GPS tracked.
Just one tracked bike is going to give too many false positives (e.g. the Po moving out in force for a "single use" theft) but if a dozen trackers on bikes reported as stolen are all moving together at speed down the highway towards the border/next town? Now there's a possible catch.
@jwcph @randahl Professiobal thieves usually know how these trackers work and if they got away with the bike to their den they will discover the tracker and disable it.
These things work mainly against amateur thieves (who steal bikes for themselves) or to intercept the stolen bike right away.
Also GPS trackers don't work that great from inside of a van or underground parking. Some cam use cell towers for approximate location but again not great.
And it is quite irritating to keep the tracker charged if you ride a lot. I ended up removing mine.
@peterdrake @jwcph @randahl Wow, this is something. What could go wrong with this operation?
With bikes it is a bit easier because of tubes which allow more space. Common places for GPS trackers are headset and fork tube (with the GPS antenna under headset cap) or seatpost (with the GPS antenna under the saddle) and usually one or two 18650 batteries can be jammed in there providing up to month of battery life. Some advanced trackers can go even longer as they save power and transmit only in motion and/or when requested by incoming SMS command. So if a thief steals a bike with such fully charged device they can be tracked for weeks or even couple of months.
I had such a device. Unfortunately it is still pain to remember to charge it when you use your bike every day (especially since it usually involves unscrewing something) and professional thieves know about these things anyway or discover them by accident as they like to swap some parts on stolen bikes right away to make them less recognizable.
Should be better with electric bikes/scooters as these are charged all the time so the tracker could be hidden deep inside and forgotten until it is needed.