A new set of tools used on buses and vehicles transporting special education and medically fragile students in Hartford, Conn., can help ease fears of these types of events happening. The City of Hartford Board of Education's special needs transportation contractor, Logisticare, uses GPS and automatic vehicle location and dispatching software from Dynamic Mobile Data (DMD) to keep track of students and buses throughout the routes.
Logisticare used the service with its paratransit customers and realized it would be useful in the education market. "We thought that the school department would like to know that we had a complete electronic audit record of exactly which kids had gotten onto which buses at what time and gotten off," said Henry Hardy, vice president of business development of Logisticare. The system also allows parents, schools, the district and the transportation provider to know where the buses are at all times.
Hartford Public Schools has almost 140 buses and vehicles for special education students and those with special medical needs. The buses are equipped with GPS receivers, which transmit their locations. Additionally, there is an adult on every bus, besides the driver, who acts as the monitor, using a handheld with an attached magnetic card reading system. Each student on the route has a card that the monitor swipes as the student boards or exits the bus. The time and location information is sent via Cingular's cellular network to a server maintained by DMD, where it is stored permanently.
If there are questions about whether a student is being picked up or whether a bus is on time or late, the district can call and get the information from Logisticare, as the manager of the service, and forward it to the parents. "We've had issues where a parent has an issue regarding a drop off or pick up of their student," said Willie Mae Moses, transportation manager of Hartford Public Schools. "We requested the contractor to bring that information to the board and we've met with the parent."
Safety Features
The mobile data terminal, the handheld used by bus monitors, allows the driver to download route information from the DMD database, updated daily by Logisticare, before each run, which can be a safety feature. "Obviously, drivers have two-way radio communication with their dispatch base, but it keeps down radio communication that you have to have with a driver -- keeps his hands on the wheel," Hardy said.
The handheld also provides helpful information about each child on the route. The amount of information is limited only by district preferences. The information is stored on DMD's database, but can be accessed via the wireless network, as the bus moves along its route. The handheld will show the address and name of the next child and any special needs that student has.
When the monitor swipes the student's card through the magnetic reader as the student boards the bus, the boarding time is sent to the main database. If a signal can't be found, the handheld stores the information until one is found.
In addition to providing some security to schools and parents about where their students are, the permanent record or arrival and departure times allows the transportation companies to monitor driver performance.
Lost and Found
For Logisticare, using GPS on buses was simple. "The worst thing you can [say to a parent is], 'No, we're not sure yet, we'll find out,'" said Dan Cyr, director of Northeast operations. "Well, you're talking about my kid here, let's find out yesterday would be the questions and we don't have that situation anymore. They [parents] can call and know exactly [where their child is]."
Hardy points out there are more options available once schools start using GPS and student and vehicle tracking technologies. Schools can program into the system phone numbers of the households on the route. As the bus approaches the next stop, the mobile device on the bus will trigger an automated phone call to that house.
The technology also provides for the possibility of a Web site, accessible through a password, for parents and educators who want to keep track of buses and students throughout the route. So instead of asking Logisticare or DMD for route information, it would be available to the district any time it is needed. "You could even give limited access to parents, so there are parents sitting in their office in the morning, can go to the Internet and quickly confirm that their kid got on the bus and didn't run off with his buddies and play hooky, if that's an issue," Hardy said. "Or, if they're looking to leave the office, they can see if their kid has gotten on the bus, has the bus left the school, has the bus even left the stop so I can jump in the car and go get my kid from the bus."
