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GPS systems likely to be installed in school buses
By Molly Parker
Staff Writer
The S.C. Department of Education expects to award a $1.7 million contract to a California company to outfit all state-owned school buses with GPS tracking systems to monitor bus drivers’ performance.
The tracking system will allow state workers to download information that would provide a sketch of how a driver handles the road. School districts can purchase additional equipment and software to send the data on a real-time basis to a secured server.
The state Department of Education hopes installing the system will encourage safety and improve routing efficiency by discouraging such poor driving habits 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 state Department of Education decided to purchase the GPS system because of its need to look more closely at its transportation division’s service, safety and efficiency, Tudor said.
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 to record speed, braking, acceleration, deceleration and use of lights.
These functions would tell a district, for instance, if a driver followed the proper procedure for crossing railroad tracks. The device will also continuously record the location of the bus.
‘‘Did they do what they’re trained to do and did they do it every time?” Tudor said about what the device will tell state workers. “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.
The state DOE isn’t the only one that benefits. The devices also could be used to exonerate a bus driver in the case of an accident, Tudor said.
Additionally, districts could independently purchase student-monitoring equipment that is not 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, McClure said. A tracking system would allow the district to quickly identify where the student was let off so he or she could be picked up and taken to the proper site. An identity system tracking students entering and exiting a bus also could be helpful during an accident, she said.
“We’ve been very blessed,” McClure said. “We’ve not had a catastrophic bus accident, but (if) 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-based Durham School Services.
McClure would like to see GPSs on all the buses used by the district within the next few years, she said. Currently, all the buses are equipped with two-way radios and most also have video cameras.
The new tracking systems 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 department hopes to install the devices on most buses by December, or at least by the start of the 2008 school year, Tudor said.
On July 19, the state posted its intent to award the contract to Radio Satellite Integrators 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 lower bid that wasn’t received by the department, Tudor said. The requests for proposal are under review.
Molly Parker is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at mparker@charlestonbusiness.com.
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