Subject: [NEXTEL-1] New technology can track students who ride school buses

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 03:06:03 -0500

New technology can track students who ride school buses
07:42 PM CST on Thursday, February 12, 2004
By Jeremy Rogalski / 11 News

A local school district is using new technology to prevent horror
stories of children let off school buses at the wrong stops. This
first-of-its-kind system is being unveiled in Spring. This new device is
meant to track students all the way home.
It is anything but old school when most of us used to rid the bus.
Welcome to the high-tech world of tracking your children or student
accountability system as the Spring Independent School District calls
the pilot program.

"It gives me a comfort to know that if they did get off at the wrong
spot I at least have a place to start looking for them," says Bammel
Elementary Principal Linda Kenjura.

Just like when everyone was looking for five-year-old Kyle Friels last
fall. "I called the police department, I called transportation and I
called the school," said Kyle's dad, Kenneth. "And I got three different
stories."
But the bus ID system is designed to prevent that very thing. "If a
parent does call us with the question, 'My child did not come home and
my child did not get off the bus?' We can find out where they actually
got off and who they got off with," says Spring ISD Transportation
Director Brian Weisinger.

Here's how it works: A bar code on each student ID is sent by phone to a
satellite and then back down to a secure Web server.

"So each one of these pushpins represents a stop that the bus made,"
says Steve Tremitiere with AIRCLIC.
That's not the only information relayed. "Bus number, number of
students, which students, what time they were picked up, what stop they
were picked up, etc." says Tremitiere. "And you've got all that
confirmation and information available."
All in real time and real accurate says Tremitiere.

But what about privacy concerns? "No, it's not big brother, this is the
safety of the children," says Weisinger. "We need to know where they
are."

The pilot program will last for a couple of weeks at Bammel Elementary
in the 7200 block of Red Oak Drive in Spring. Right now two buses are
outfitted with the technology.

After the trial period Spring ISD officials will sit down with AIRCLIC,
the Philadelphia-area developer, as well as Nextel, to see if it can
afford the new technology district-wide.

See The Video Here:
http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/khou040212_ds_SpringISDTracking.140d15fd.html

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