Why Doesn’t Every School District Do This?

here’s a nice write-up from a systems designer on a gangbuster tool they put together for school districts.  You know there are all sorts of providers trying to sell GPS tracking to school bus operators … and any GPS is better than no GPS … but GPS alone does not provide the real solution school districts need to track and account for children … and minimize their liability exposure.  This is the sort of system that will not only pay for itself in operating costs savings but will keep our children safer and protect against the massive, often frivolous lawsuits we see today every time a child goes astray.

TechsUS a Texas Corporation approached AVIDWireless to develop their integrated school bus application called PVTS-1. PVTS-1 is a totally new system that will allow for automatic accounting of students riding school buses equipped with the PVTS-1 units.

The onboard system will utilize bio-readers to scan finger prints of the student bus riders, keeping an accurate to-the-stop accounting of where the students are in your school transit system. The buses are also tracked via GPS, to allow finding the location of a bus in times of duress or emergency. With the PVTS-1 the buses can also be checked for their speed. The PVTS-1 provides the tracking of where the children board and disembark the bus. The time is recorded on all events, as well.

The fully integrated system comes complete with both the back-end registration system (a web based system) and the PVTS-1 unit which is installed on the bus. The PVTS-1 unit is built on the AVIDdirector? platform and utilizes the Nextel Networks for the initial units. The PVTS-1 unit captures and registers the location of each student as the enter and leave the bus, and notifies the proper administration of any child remaining on the bus upon return to the depot. In addition the PVTS-1 constantly monitors the location and speed of the bus and can provide essential information to authorities should an emergency occur. The PVTS-1 unit provides two-way messaging support which allows the driver and the dispatcher to be in contact with each other at any time.

The full system will provide school districts with leading edge technology to protect our most valuable assets, our children and grandchildren.

So?  What will it take?