GPS on School Buses

Barbara Pytel, Paulline Larson Photography

Posted by
Barbara Pytel
Feb 23, 2007

What would it be like to be a parent of a 9-year-old and have your child riding on a school bus missing for five hours? That actually happened in Pennsylvania in 2002, writes Denise Pappalardo of Network World. The bus ended up 100 miles from home and luckily the gunman surrendered to police without any injuries to students. Could this happen again? Absolutely.

Bus safety is a concern and there has been much talk on how to make buses safer. But, what if the bus can not be found? Everyday Wireless is offering location-tracking technology for school buses. Dispatchers and law enforcement would be able to track school bus movement every 10 seconds. All buses could be instantly located.

The iX-3 system also supports rider attendance features that track when and where students board and disembark the bus, writes Pappalando. The system can alert the bus driver if a student gets off at the wrong location.

Is anyone using this system? Yes. The following schools already have this system in place.

Colorado Springs School District
Orange County Public Schools in Florida
Dallas County Schools

Recently, students have become targets of terrorists and other disturbed individuals. Schools have added radios, cameras and seatbelts to improve safety on buses. Perhaps, this is the next step.

Read previous articles on Educational Issues.

Comments

Oct 6, 2008 2:27 PM

Guest :

Now more than ever the safety of our children in the hands of the school districts is being tested. Doing all that we can to prevent anymore tragedies from occurring is a necessary expense. These tracking systems have so many safety features available that it's hard to ignore the reluctance of our school districts.
-Provanté

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