by Del Stover
2/8/05 -- With the touch of a button, a bus dispatcher for the Grand Prairie Independent School District in Texas can determine the exact location of one of its school buses, how fast it’s moving, and whether it stopped at a bus stop as scheduled.
Such close tabs can be kept on the school bus fleet because each bus has been linked to a Global Positioning System (GPS), which uses a network of satellites orbiting overhead to pinpoint the location of each bus.
“If we ever have a situation where a driver is incapacitated and is not able to communicate with us, we can locate the vehicle,” says Phil Gurke, interim transportation director in Grand Prairie. “If we have a complaint called in, we can go back and check the data.”
Originally developed as a navigation system for the U.S. Department of Defense, GPS technology in recent years has been making inroads in the civilian world.
A growing number of commercial truck and taxi fleets are being equipped with the technology, some cell phones are GPS-enabled, and an inexpensive GPS tracker will soon hit Wal-Mart stores.
Yet, the technology is only now making its appearance in school bus fleets, says Robin Leeds, an industry specialist with the National School Transportation Association.
“It’s still pretty new,” Leeds says. “And along with a lot of new things, there are a lot of unanswered questions about it.”
But more school systems are jumping on the bandwagon, says John Phillips, CEO of Satellite Security Systems Inc., or S3, which has signed up several school districts, including the District of Columbia; Fairfax County, Va.; and San Francisco.
Security concerns are fueling much of the interest in GPS, school officials say. In interviews, some cited concerns about the location of students during the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., and an incident in 2002 when a Pennsylvania bus driver took 13 students on an unauthorized five-hour detour. Police later found a loaded M1A rifle behind the driver’s seat.
“Everything is different now with the post-9/11 world,” says David Walthall, director of transportation in California’s Ontario-Montclair school district.
In an emergency, he says, his district’s new GPS system -- coupled with a new on-board student registration system -- can provide school officials with detailed information on any bus, including “exactly where it is, who is on it, which direction it’s going . . . everything we need to know.”
In Grand Prairie, the technology goes one better -- it alerts school officials to potential problems.
For example, the tracking system will alert school officials if a bus goes over the maximum allowed 50 miles per hour or if a bus stops longer than two minutes -- a possible indication of a problem.
The Ontario-Montclair school system spent $134,000 outfitting its 48 buses with GPS, Walthall says. But lower insurance costs are expected to offset the expense.
The Pinellas County, Fla., school system also is hoping GPS technology will result in significant savings, as officials use the detailed data to streamline bus routes, consolidate underutilized stops, and shorten driving times.
At S3, the tracking system is supported with specialized software that not only analyzes bus route data but sends school districts an almost daily update for improving fleet efficiency. As a result, he claims, school districts can recapture much of the $15 to $20 per student annual cost of his firm’s services.
School officials in New Haven, Conn., hope their GPS-equipped buses will make it easier to respond to complaints when parents call about late or non-existent service.
“There are times when a parent will call and say, ‘My kid missed the bus. He was out there, and it never came,’” says New Haven School Transportation Director Teddi Barra. “Now we can get the GPS data and show if it was there and the time, and we’re finding that nine times out of 10, the bus was there.”
ýome school systems are adding additional features to their buses to supplement GPS technology. Pinellas County officials, for example, are installing an electronic screen on buses that will scan thumbprints and tell bus drivers whether students are registered to ride that bus -- and if they disembark at the wrong stop.
Öhe Ontario-Montclair schools are installing a similar system. “It just increases security to the highest level,” Walthall says. “At the end of the day, we can account for [each child] on a bus like never before.”
To date, few bus drivers or parents have voiced concerns with these new tracking systems -- with the exception of Boston, where talk of GPS-equipped buses sparked charges of racism and Orwellian tactics from the union representing school bus drivers.
The union portrayed the GPS equipment as “contentious spy devices,” but the city council voted to encourage the school system to pursue the proposal after a Boston Globe article reported bus drivers sleeping in buses, using them to shop, and working hours on the clock without picking up any students.
At S3, Phillips dismisses concerns about Big Brother spying, saying, “You have nothing to worry about as long as you’ve got nothing to hide.”