Tennessee District Seeks to Increase Video Cameras on School Buses

(TNS) -- Knox County Schools received a total of seven bids from four companies as the district works to increase the number of video cameras on its school buses. The district wants to have two cameras on every bus, one facing the bus driver and one facing the students, as part of four strategies officials announced at the beginning of the school year in the wake of the Dec. 2 bus crash which killed two Sunnyview Primary School students and a teacher’s aide.

The bid allows the school system to put a vendor in place — and a price — to purchase camera systems as needed.

The number of buses with cameras and number of cameras on those buses were not immediately available, according to Melissa Ogden, KCS spokesperson.

“While not always the case, we have largely placed cameras on some buses to address disciplinary issues,” she said.

On Thursday, the Knox County Purchasing Department opened the bids which asked companies to submit costs for camera systems that included a digital video recorder, a front-cabin camera, a rear-cabin camera, a driver-area camera and review software, as well as individual costs for each item.

“We will work with purchasing to review the bids and identify a suitable vendor,” said Russ Oaks, the school system’s chief operating officer.

The four companies that submitted bids were: Angel Trax Bus Video, of Newton, Ala.; Pro-Vision Video Systems, of Byron Center, Mich.; Safety Vision, of Houston, Texas; and Gatekeeper Systems, whose corporate offices are based in Canada.

Angel Trax, Pro-Vision and Safety Vision each submitted proposals for both standard camera systems and high definition camera systems.

Angel Trax’s bid for the package that included everything came to $866.94 for its high definition camera systems and $769.38 for its standard camera system. Each camera individually was $109.

Pro-Vision’s bid for the package that included everything came to $875 for its standard camera systems and $1,523 for its high definition camera systems. The individual costs for its standard cameras was $142, while its high definition cameras were $283.

Safety Vision’s bid for the package that included everything came to $685 for its standard camera systems and $985 for its high definition cameras. Each camera individually was $149.

Gatekeeper, which submitted only one bid, submitted a bid of $746 for the package that included everything. Each camera individually was $106.

Additional strategies Knox County Schools has announced include the creation of a safety check ride program where uniformed officers ride buses periodically to observe drivers, more training for drivers, especially around distracted driving, and a third-party review of the transportation department and operations.

©2015 the Knoxville News-Sentinel (Knoxville, Tenn.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.