Real time GPS tracking on school buses drives efficiencies

Application of real time GPS tracking to school buses is driving operational efficiencies and allowing parents to follow their childern's movements, report Jason Barnes

Ease of access to smartphone apps is transforming travel management. With much of the world waking up to the use of smartphones and becoming 'app-happy', it is perhaps logical and sensible for school bus operations to follow suit. Over the past year or so, major systems providers in North America have been launching apps which allow pupils' parents to access real time information on bus locations and status via hand held devices.

1693 Everyday Solutions has fitted out some 30,000 school buses with real time GPS tracking in 100 North American school districts. The company's 'HereComesTheBus' app is the realisation of a concept which goes back over a decade: provision of accurate, real time location information to parents.

The app relies on a mix of smartphone technology, GPS, automatic vehicle location and digital maps. The Everyday Solutions GPS tracking system sends data packets every 10 seconds. Earlier versions used bespoke, radio based communications but the company has now moved to a cellular solution supporting all major US carriers. This reflects the falling costs of data transmission, says Everyday Solutions' vice president of marketing Bill Westerman.

The base level HereComesTheBus offering to districts allows parents to log on, register and access a unique URL which shows only 'their' bus route. This allows them to track bus location and view expected and logged arrival times. Parents previously received alerts via conventional cell phones but with smartphones it is possible to track buses' progress as well.

That, for the present, is probably the limit of smartphones' utility, Westerman says: "Smartphones and tablets are not in the short term going to replace dedicated devices embedded on vehicles. When GPS is switched on, they consume a lot of battery power and they are accurate to within 100-200ft, compared to our onboard systems' 12ft accuracy. We're more likely to see GPS data collected via the vehicle and smartphone signals used for crowdsourcing purposes. Smartphones do push us into consumer markets though and there are some interesting future possibilities there." Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, he says. "Districts report that no parents have got in the way of tracking. Some concerns have been expressed over the possibility of web predators tracking minors but the truth is that web access is restricted and the buses themselves are so accurately and visibly tracked that it would be very difficult for such individuals to target them.

"From an operational perspective, it's great for districts to be able to provide information when parents call up but it's even better that through an app such as this the parents already have the data themselves." Nash Rocky Mount Schools in North Carolina operates a fleet of 300 buses, all of which are equipped with Everyday Solutions systems. The operator's transportation director Binford Sloan, sees great potential for the new app.

Historically, school bus fleet owners and operators have had to rely on companies which can set up communications trees - mass-calling systems used during times of national emergency - to address the situation when operations go awry. These represent a significant cost. HereComesTheBus, Sloan says, could potentially change that quite radically.

"Using HereComesTheBus will allow parents to subscribe and see information on late running buses for themselves. We're going to be merging the technologies," he says.

"Communications trees need operatives in the despatch office to manually cue the system to call parents with automated or recorded messages. But using GPS and the app will allow alerts to be generated automatically once certain thresholds have been passed. That's going to save us money."

There is a considerable market in school bus operations in North America; of around 500,000 school buses in operation, approximately 100,000 are currently equipped with GPS and other sensors intended to maximise operational efficiencies and safety. The size of the market can be viewed in two ways, says Bill Westerman: the installed base and the depth of the application.

"Everyday Solutions has developed an end-to-end suite of route planning, transaction management and other products. As well as GPS tracking, we offer the ability to tie into between five and eight onboard sensors. These can let us know whether a vehicle's doors are open or closed, or whether the 'Stop' arm at a school bus stop has been activated to alert other drivers to pedestrians in the road." The same technology can be applied elsewhere, to 'lone worker' or refrigerated trailer monitoring. For lone workers there is the promise of a significant safety benefit. For tracking refrigerated trailers there is an anti-theft or anti-spoiling application. Everyday Solutions has also patented a sensor which allows monitoring of vehicle idle times, either to save fuel or to have vehicles conform with local legislation.

Safety is the key benefit, however: "Solutions such as ours allow fitting of an electronic onboard button which drivers can use to alert despatch centres should anything go wrong. Most districts have protocols which use AVL to alert the emergency services as appropriate but there can also be other more pragmatic solutions. Last year in Colorado, huge snowstorms caused several school buses to become stranded. Real time tracking allowed parents with 4x4s to retrieve those who were stuck," Westerman says. "We can monitor speeding and GPS real time data can be stored for analysis on demand. We can also provide safety and protection in a legal sense, by proving that drivers have acted correctly." Union objection to the fitting of GPS is receding, Westerman adds: "The unions and drivers see that GPS protects both employer and employee. It's impartial and impervious to human frailties which are a fact of life. We've got to a position where fitting GPS is now questioned as when instead of why." Synovia, another supplier of GPS tracking technology, has had a hand held app available for about a year. Its vice president Brad Bishop disputes the assertion that the truly integrated platform is already here.

"A lot of claims are made for this and we're seeing a lot of partnering and bridges between technologies but not really a single platform as yet. The fully integrated system is the way to go, however. We should be there by mid to late 2012," Bishop says.

Other progressions include use of RFID to log patronage and engine diagnostics for preventative maintenance, but Bishop sees route guidance and two way communications with drivers as the next big steps.

"There's not yet a ready made 490 Garmin-like solution out there for the school bus market and you have to weigh up the practicalities, such as driver distraction, but something which addresses changing conditions in real time would be a major leap." Although there would appear to be a huge number of school buses just waiting to be equipped with GPS, Bishop says that accessing the remainder is less straightforward than it might seem. The emphasis will have to be on ensuring rapid returns on investment. In the current climate, that means something of the order of one to two months. "The challenge for the vendor is to come up with pricing and service models that can do that," he says.

Another app provider is 1695 Edulog. The company's regional sales manager Ross Miller sees space for servicing the needs of several different user groups. These might include school administrators looking to match bus arrivals to school bell times.

Better evaluation and planning is where he sees future development. One of the big positives of real time GPS is its provision of data for comparing planned and actual routes taken, so realising efficiencies. "The technology is heading towards mobile data terminals which give drivers real time directions.

Exception based solutions are the ideal. Managers do not want to know about the 90% of vehicles running on-time; they want to know about the 10% running late and needing to be managed," he says. "GPS is only 60-70% efficient unless it's tied to a routeing system but it does take the guesswork out of planning." Analysis of vehicle movements is showing, on average, 15-20% of bus stops are not being used. That can be for any number of reasons, such as parents electing to take their children to school, but combining that information with true journeys and patronage counts allows more efficient routes to be created.

"This is still very much a growing industry," Miller says. "The current economic situation makes finding the capital for investment difficult but we demonstrate very quick returns.

Further growth will I think be a product of educating the market, but we continue to see annual increases in the amounts of units we sell."