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GPS systems likely to be installed in state school buses
By Molly Parker
Staff Writer
The S.C. Department of Education is poised to award a $1.7 million contract to a California company to outfit all state-owned school buses with global positioning systems.
The GPSs will allow state workers the ability to download operating information to a handheld computer from a bus that would provide a sketch of how a driver handles the road. School districts can purchase additional equipment and software that would allow the data to be sent real time to a secured server.
The goal is to encourage safety and improve routing efficiency by discouraging bad driving habits, such as rushing through stop signs, wasting gas by unnecessarily idling, repeatedly slamming the brakes to avoid accidents or creating routes that deviate from those outlined by school officials, said Donald Tudor, the department’s transportation director.
“It’s like having an electric eye watching every school bus,” Tudor said.
The decision to purchase the GPSs, Tudor said, was prompted “by a need to look more closely at our service, safety and efficiency.”
The department owns 5,700 buses that are used by various school districts across the state. The devices will tap into the buses’ electrical systems via a wiring mechanism and will record speed, braking, acceleration and deceleration and use of lights, which would tell a district, for instance, if a driver followed the proper procedure for crossing railroad tracks. It will also continuously record the location of the bus.
“It will monitor, ‘Did they do what they’re trained to do and did they do it every time?’” Tudor said. “As far as a quality control device, and a safety monitoring device, for such a simple piece of equipment, the data it generates is just phenomenal,” he said, adding that “Big Brother” isn’t the only one who benefits.
The devices also could be used to exonerate a bus driver in the case of an accident, he said.
Additionally, districts will have the ability, on their own, to purchase student monitoring equipment that does not come as a part of this package.
That’s something the Charleston County School District has been interested in for some time, said Katie McClure, director of student transportation and charter school services.
During the school year, the district transports roughly 23,000 children daily more than 1,000 square miles, with buses making a combined 7,000 stops in the morning and evening.
Occasionally, students get off at the wrong stop and get lost, she said. A tracking system would allow the district to quickly identify where the student was let off so the child could be picked up and taken to the correct place. An identity system tracking students entering and exiting the bus also could be incredibly helpful during a tragic accident, she said.
“We’ve been very blessed,” she said. “We’ve not had a catastrophic bus accident, but in the event you had such an event, you could identify students quicker, get in touch with parents quicker, get them checked in at hospitals, things like that.”
The Charleston County School District uses 300 state buses on its routes, 39 district-owned buses and 58 buses through a contract with Illinois-headquartered Durham School Services. McClure said she would like to see GPSs on all the buses used by the district within the next few years. Currently, all the buses are equipped with two-way radios and most also have video cameras.
The GPSs are expected to cost the state roughly $300 apiece, including the antenna and mounting costs, plus $895 for each of 60 software packages used to read the data. The goal is to have the devices installed on most buses by December, or at least by the start of the 2008 school year, Tudor said, though the timeline may be stalled by contract complications.
On July 19, the state posted its intent to award the contract to Radio Satellite Integrators, out of Torrance, Calif., though the process was suspended July 27 under state guidelines because of a protest by Montana-based Edulog, which claims it submitted a bid for a lesser amount that wasn’t received by the department, Tudor said. The requests for proposal are under review.
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