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Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Clayton/Henry) – August 29, 2002
Satellites watch
as school buses travel the roads
County installs tracking
system
By
Kevin Duffy
Ping.
That's the new global positioning
satellite system at work on dozens of Clayton County school buses.
As buses travel the county's
highways, satellites 12,660 miles away will be "watching"
--- tracking the lumbering yellow giants every six to 10 seconds.
With the satellites' help,
a frustrated parent calling the school system can get a precise
answer to the question "Where's my child's bus?"
If a bus has an accident or
a youngster needs emergency assistance, help can be dispatched immediately
because the GPS system pinpoints locations.
Clayton is the first metro
county to buy the small satellite receivers, which were installed
on 50 new buses. The satellites, at least four of them, send out
radio signals the receivers can detect.
"We're always trying
to be proactive about safety," said Michael Jennings, the school
system's transportation director.
The school system used money
from the special purpose local option sales tax and state aid to
purchase the $864 receivers and pay the monthly usage fee, about
$24 per box over 10 months, Jennings said.
Last year, Clayton tried out
the system on 11 buses carrying special needs children. The drivers
were paraprofessionals who parked the buses at the schools and helped
the teachers.
The GPS system created a bus
footprint that showed the drivers were working long days and had
to be paid overtime, Jennings said.
Atlanta-based Discrete Wireless
was hired to install the system. Each unit was placed out of sight
behind the dashboard. Drivers don't need to access them.
A school transportation department
employee who wants to track a bus can go to the Discrete Wireless
Web site, www.discretewireless.com, and enter a password.
Information on the site allows
the school system to print reports on where a bus stopped or how
fast it was going, said Shawn Millar, a company spokesman. Printing
a bus route created by the satellite system also is an easy way
to show a new driver where the stops are, Millar said.
But the GPS system will be
especially valuable on occasions when an emergency arises.
Jennings recounted an incident
in January when an armed man in Pennsylvania took 13 schoolchildren
on a 160-mile trip to Maryland. Helicopters searched the Eastern
Shore as parents frantically wondered where there kids were.
Tracking that bus by satellite
would have relieved a lot of the anxiety, Jennings said.
He
recalled another incident in Clayton County. Several years ago,
a special needs child had a seizure on the bus. The driver wasn't
sure if it would be quicker to take the child back home or go to
the school.
If
the bus had had a GPS system, the driver could have radioed the
dispatcher and found the quickest route, Jennings said.
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