Thanks, I suspect, in part to the demands of the aging population, I've discovered an abundance of devices for tracking and locating vulnerable people, from items that clip on to clothing to something that you can put in the bottom of a shoe! Most work on cellular networks, and I'm sure more come out all the time. We have addressed the need to track our son's movements through using his cell phone because, like NT people of his generation, that darned thing is pretty much always with him.
Following the truly memorable experience of having him lost for a day (!) on the subway (he didn't leave the subway car all day, as far as we can tell, until it went out of service and he was forced off), we got him an Android phone. We also signed up for cell service from Freedom Mobile, which is the only provider that offers service on the TTC: although on-train service can be spotty outside the downtown core, if you get off a train and go to the Designated Waiting Area, our experiments have shown you can almost always get service. (Those locations are also adjacent to where the cab containing the subway driver is, so offer an opportunity to ask for help.)
We also use Prey (https://preyproject.com/), a free app with website that tracks the location of devices: and, as noted above, we're pretty sure that where his device is, that's where you'll find our guy. It can also send an alarm to the phone: presumably that's intended to help you locate a lost phone, but it's also useful for notifying the phone owner. Devon often travels with WheelTrans and although he often calls when he's in the cab, it's still useful for me to check up on where he is, how close he is to home, etc. I confess I sometimes also use it to see how much time I have left to write this blog before he arrives home from whatever outing he might be on!
We're also looking at putting an "I need help" audio clip on his phone that he could play in emergencies: we're worried about him being seen as a weird guy rather than someone who actually needs help, and he's very reluctant to ask for help under pretty much any situation. (Yes, we're working on that too, but it's tricky. I sometimes joke that we need a "friendly stranger" program where people we know and trust but that our kids don't know shadow them through potentially hazardous situations.)
Update: cleaning up some old email and found this article about using Google Maps, which could easily be adapted for tracking purposes:
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