During its extensive radio system upgrade, South-Western City School (SWCS) District installed MOTOTRBO XPR 4350 radios in its school buses. These radios offer a wide spectrum of features.
Besides providing basic voice capabilities between the buses and dispatch, the radios have embedded GPS that allows the dispatcher to track any bus at any given time, according to Kevin Read, MOTOTRBO business development manager.
“The radios also have data capabilities for telemetry so they can track the speed of the buses, when the lights go on, or when the stop light on the bus is engaged,” he says. “They can track when the bus door is open, or drivers can log into the radio to basically clock into work in the morning.”
MOTOTRBO radios can also be integrated with software such as TimeLink, an attendance system; Versatrans by Tyler Technologies and Edulog — both of which are routing software.
SWCS uses its MOTOTRBO radios with a solution from Neo Terra Systems that provides GPS tracking. The solution provides the district with a multitude of features without the monthly fee associated with many GPS services.
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“We can watch on a map where the bus is. We can tell how long that bus stopped, how long the doors were open, whether or not the lights went on,” says Gary Sigrist, Jr., district project director of readiness and emergency management in schools. “If buses are speeding, [the radio] sends an alert to the dispatch center to let us know.”
Also, during an emergency, the bus driver can hit a panic button on the radio to be directly connected to the Grove City Police.
“The added safety features that we have are phenomenal,” Sigrist says.
[divider]Article courtesy of www.campussafetymagazine.com. Written by By Brittany-Marie Swanson | June 18, 2012
