School district to install GPS' on school buses
BY PAM BRANNON Special to the News news@gulfbreezenews.com

Fifty of Santa Rosa County School District's 325 buses will be reporting back to the bus garage every 10 seconds next school year - without their drivers saying a word over their radios.

The school board has approved purchasing 50 GPS systems to place on their 50 newest buses. If those work well, the school district's transportation department is considering purchasing enough in the next fiscal budget to place on every bus.

Transportation Director Joey Harrell said he went to Sarasota to see how this system works. "They run about the same size fleet as we do. They have seen a cost savings in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars by using this system."

Harrell said the GPS does more than just tell the bus garage where their buses are at all times. "This will be a safety back-up for the bus drivers, and will be something that can actually help our credibility with the public, too," he said.

"When people call and say a bus was speeding through an area, and a bus driver says they were not speeding, for example, we can check exactly what speed that bus was going at any given time and place and we can show everyone exactly what speed that bus was going. And nowdays, with those turbo engines making the bus sound like they are racing, it can help to show that the bus is not speeding at all, it just sounds louder."

Harrell said this system will tell them exactly where the bus is at all times, how fast that bus is going, how long it stops at any bus stop or stop sign or railroad track, IF the bus stops at all, and how long it is idling.

"People call our offices every day claiming the bus never stopped for their child, and the bus driver swears they stopped and waited and no child came out -- so now we can show people that indeed our drivers did make the stop," Harrell said.

"We can perhaps also save money on fuel from idling. We have a policy of not having the bus idle over three minutes. Now if a bus arrives at the school 20 minutes early, and it is sitting idling over three minutes, we can remind the driver not to idle all that time. That can save us a lot of fuel," Harrell said.

He said it will also help substitute drivers who don't know routes. "They are always calling saying they are lost and do not know where to go next, so now we can see exactly where they are and tell them where to turn next."

If the driver has an emergency of any kind, and needs help - from a fight on the bus to an accident - the driver does not need to use the radio to try to reach the office. All the driver needs to do in this system to report an emergency is push a button.

"Sometimes our radios get pretty clogged with ordinary every day back and forth talk. It can be tough to get through it all if there is a sudden need for help," Harrell said.

He said it can also help plan routes more efficiently. "Driver soften tell us they think their routes can be reorganized more efficiently, so with this system we can put all the data into the computer and see what comes out as the best way to organize the route, along with input from the driver on real life situations on the ground. And we may be able to save time and fuel by changing routes to be run differently, too," he said.

Next year the transportation department has planned for 255 routes countywide. "This is a cellular based system, instead of radio based system," Harrell explained. "That means it can be put in place more quickly and have many advantages a radio based system does not. We can definitely have it in place by the beginning of the next school year."