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

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 02:53:10 -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.

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http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/khou040212_ds_SpringISDTracking.140d15fd.html

Video:
http://www.khou.com/cgi-bin/bi/video/G2redirect.pl?title=5751594

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