Oct 2, 2007

Keeping Track of School Buses

It's 10 p.m. -- do you know where your children are? Maybe you don't, but New York's Niagara Falls School District soon will after its agreement with The Tracking Corporation, allowing the district's school buses to be equipped with GPS technology. Within the next few months, the district will be able to track the movement of the buses and, eventually, its students.

"Anything we can do to support young people getting to and from school safely is worth being involved in," said State Senator Antoine Thompson, Buffalo, at a conference announcing the initiative at Niagara Street School.

The proven GPS technology is integrated with a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, live monitoring and support center and two-way satellite communication. The system offers school districts the potential for significant transportation cost reductions through efficient routing and scheduling, in addition to advances in security and safety.

"We are able to exponentially expand upon the number of schools and students our technology can help protect," said Jerry Grisaffi, CEO of The Tracking Corporation. "We will now deliver the ability to monitor virtually every aspect of a school's transportation process through the use of our hardware technology and our software solutions, tied directly to the school district databases, if they so choose."

After being installed into each bus, the units will allow the central bus garage and other district officials to monitor the progress and speed of each bus, making sure the buses get where they need to be in a safe fashion. Bus drivers can use the devices to make calls and an emergency button will accompany each GPS unit to allow the driver to seek help instantly.