ABSTRACT A vehicle tracking system is any technology that can be used to access the location of a vehicle; either in real time or offline. However, for many car owners, especially on the continent of Africa, vehicle tracking is a luxury which only a few people can afford. Many people are struggling to get a car in the first place. Analysis of vehicle theft data done in South Africa showed that most of the vehicle theft in the Southern African country are as a result of poor security systems. Furthermore, the vehicles stolen do not have any tracking systems. Therefore, to reduce the number of vehicle theft on the continent, this project is aimed at developing a low cost, flexible vehicle tracking system. The tracking system uses Ublox’s GPS module, NEO6M, to obtain the coordinates of the vehicle. These coordinates can then be sent to the owner of the vehicle using a cellular network. The network chosen for this project is MTN. To reduce the cost of operating by sending too many SMS messages, the device makes use of the concept of geofencing. Geofencing allows the device to only send a text message to the owner if the vehicle is going to unfamiliar territory. The device also allows the owner of the vehicle to lock the vehicle in the event of, or suspected, theft. A statistical analysis was performed to test the accuracy of the coordinates obtained from the device. It was observed that the device would give accurate coordinates 95% percent of the time.
