By Kellah Lavoie

GPS’s to make school buses safe, more efficient

Jul 5, 2011 | 12:11 PM

The Saskatchewan Rivers School Division is going to be keeping a closer eye on their school buses and vans.

Over the summer they will install GPS units in the vehicles, coming at a cost of about $30,000.

“Safety is a big part of it,” Tim Wilkinson, superintendent of transportation.

“You know where the bus is all the time, you can monitor it. If you have a problem with the bus or the bus stops at some point you can find out where it stopped.”

The system is not in place to show drivers were to go as they won’t have screens in the vehicle.
Instead, they will keep track of things such as mileage, routing, where the bus stops and speed.

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“A lot of people watch busses and report different things, so if somebody says you have a problem with the bus you can check it out and see exactly what the bus is doing,” he said, adding his bus drivers were asking for the system.

“We get so many reports from different people, you know ‘my kids were there and the bus didn’t pick them up or maybe speeding, or what have you,” he said.

“Busses are big and noisy and look like they’re going fast, but typically the bus drivers are very good,” Wilkinson said.

“When you get drivers asking to be monitored you know they are doing the right thing.”

It will also help when they have substitute drives. They can monitor if the bus gets off route or gets behind schedule.

“We have a nice little yellow bus following a route, and it if gets off route or is late, or any other thing that we want it to alert us to, the bus will turn red and we can even get it to send us an email saying there is a problem,” he said.

They have not decided which GPS system to go with yet.

The school division is currently looking at a radio model, which costs about $600 and a cellphone model, which costs about $200 but comes with a monthly fee.

They also need to ensure they fleet management and routing software ties in with the model before purchasing it, he said.

The goal of the units is to make the busses safer and more efficient, he said.

klavoie@panow.com