Rocky Mountain Tracking

Daily GPS News

Truant Students Issued GPS Trackers

March 15th, 2013

Concerns about habitually truant students have caused some schools to issue GPS tracking devices to some of their students. The program, which is being tried in schools both in California and Texas, hopes to encourage students to attend school regularly to gain full benefit from the education available to them.

How It Works

Students who chronically skip class are given the opportunity to participate in the tracking program. If they and their parents agree, they are issued a small GPS device, about the size of a cell phone. They are required to check in five times a day — when they leave the house in the morning, when they arrive at school, at lunchtime, when they leave school at the end of the day, and at eight o’clock in the evening. The device registers their location at the time of these check-ins to verify that their position is as they are reporting. It can also detect if the tracker has been given to a different student than the one to whom it is assigned. Some programs also offer wake up calls to get the student out of bed in the morning. They are also paired with a coach who contacts them on a regular basis and encourages them to stay in school.

The Benefits

These GPS trackers can have several positive results. For many students, just the discipline of checking in and knowing that they are carrying the device gives them the accountability they need to attend school regularly. Others need the knowledge of the consequences that come with continued skipping — likely juvenile court prosecution for truancy for the student and fines for the parents. If the program succeeds in its goal to encourage students to attend class, however, they receive a better education and are less likely to become involved in gangs and illegal activity. Some school districts are able to offset the cost of the devices using grants. In other districts, the devices pay for themselves since the schools receive funding based on the number of students attending and increased attendance brings more funds. At least one school has seen an increase in student attendance from 78% to 90%.

Although some have raised concerns that these programs are invasive and violate student privacy, the concept seems to be well received in the districts that have attempted it. It is likely that GPS trackers will become a more common method of discouraging student truancy in the future.

GPS Tracking Keeps School Buses Running on Schedule

February 8th, 2013

Each day millions of children rely on buses to get them to school. But when the bus runs late or doesn’t show at all, those students and their families face big problems. That’s what happened to thousands of children in Florida’s Broward County when their school buses failed to arrive as expected. In an effort to make sure the debacle doesn’t repeat itself, some school officials hope that GPS tracking can provide a solution to keep the buses running on schedule.

Many districts nationwide already use GPS tracking to monitor their school buses, providing accountability for drivers and giving parents a way to see when the bus will arrive. Using an app, parents can track the bus’s entire route to and from school, letting them know when their child arrives safely and also keeping them apprised of delays or problems. The systems also help drivers choose the most efficient routes, saving fuel and preventing backtracking which can cause greater delays.

While Broward’s problem of missing buses wasn’t caused by the lack of GPS devices per se, officials hope that the greater accountability provided by a new system would help ensure that children get to school safely and on time. Critics point out that the school bought a system in 2007, but that it was never implemented due to budget cuts.

GPS technology for school buses not only keeps the buses running as scheduled, but also provides an added measure of safety for students. The devices would keep track of stops and driving time, letting parents know when their children have arrived at school, pinpointing when they can expect them to arrive home, and ensuring that drivers don’t miss a stop when dropping children off after school.

School officials who worry about already-strapped budgets can expect the systems to save the district money by increasing fuel efficiency. By tracking driver behavior, schools can monitor how long buses are left idling and whether drivers take the most direct route to a given destination. Fleet managers who have implemented such measures report cost savings in the thousands of dollars, enabling the system to pay for itself by reducing expenditures.

Broward’s school board has yet to decide whether their buses will be equipped with GPS tracking devices going forward, but proponents of the idea hope that the potential benefits will outweigh budget concerns during the decision-making process.

Tennessee Considers GPS for School Buses

November 12th, 2012

When you think about it, school bus drivers are key players when it comes to the safety of our children. Once or twice every weekday, they take kids on the road to and from school in a large vehicle that is surprisingly difficult to operate safely. In Tennessee, buses are not required to have seat belts, so if an accident does occur, the danger to children is much higher than if they had been in a family vehicle. A recent crash in Washington County, Tennessee has officials looking into the possibility of using GPS devices to reduce the chances of similar disasters in the future.

A thorough investigation showed that the bus was working properly, ruling out mechanical problems as a cause of the crash. It appears that the driver was simply practicing unsafe driving habits, leading to an accident that injured 27 young people. Of course, it is impossible to know whether seat belts would have been able to prevent some of those injuries, but it is unlikely, since the bus rolled after it swerved off the road. A better prevention measure would have been the ability to spot the driver’s bad driving and address it before an accident could happen. That’s just the kind of alert that GPS monitoring can provide.

Commercial fleet operators use GPS monitoring to send back alarms when their drivers exceed speed limits, brake too hard and too often, and veer off their established routes. This is just what supervisors would like to find out about their school bus drivers in order to make sure that they are driving carefully with kids on board. If a driver knows that someone other than the children on the bus is keeping an eye on them, he or she will be less likely to take chances.

As the county looks into its options, GPS monitoring offers a lot of benefits that would not come with other solutions like seat belts. Supervisors of school bus fleets are currently in a tricky situation: the only witnesses to poor driving are usually children who don’t know how to drive, and if a complaint does arise from them, it is extremely difficult to prove. GPS may be the key to keeping drivers accountable the entire time they’re on the road.

Back-To-School Bus Safety

August 15th, 2011

It seems like summer just began, and it’s already back-to-school time in Jackson-Madison County. Morning commuters are going to have to re-adjust to the presence of school busses back on the road. Officials in Jackson-Madison County are providing parents and motorists with some basic reminders of road safety during the school season.

Drivers should always be mindful of pedestrians, no matter their size or age. When school starts, drivers need to watch out for children walking to and from school. Some children begin walking to and from school at a very early age. Hopefully, smaller children are accompanied by at least one adult, but this is not always the case. Small children can be hard to see, especially during a hurried glance. Always obey posted speed limits in school zones, and stop at stop signs, thoroughly checking intersections, in order to prevent tragic accidents from occurring this school year.

In addition to pedestrians, motorists also need to get used to school busses populating the roads in the early mornings and afternoon. The busses are equipped with a GPS device, to ensure safety of the children on board. School busses have to make regular stops along their route in order to pick up and drop off students. Vehicles sharing the road with busses need to take some extra precautions to ensure the safety of the precious cargo.

All school busses receive regular maintenance, in order to provide the safest transportation available for students. Busses are tracked along their routes with a GPS device, and include audio and video surveillance on board for maximum transparency. Should the bus driver go off route for any reason, a signal is sent to a computer system, where it the issue can be addressed by administration. The video and audio surveillance serve a similar purpose as the GPS device; child safety. Any dangerous conduct on the bus can be reviewed, and consequences can be determined for guilty parties, in order to provide the safest transportation service possible.

Article Written by Marisa O’Connor

Anaheim Schools Force Truant Students to Carry GPS

March 2nd, 2011

School districts in Anaheim, California have decided to try to keep kids in school by requiring habitually truant students to wear GPS tracking devices. According to school officials, they have tried all other methods of keeping kids in school. After a recent rise in truancy, despite these efforts, schools have decided to adopt a new, high-tech approach to keeping kids from truancy. “This is their last chance at an intervention. Anything that can help these kids get to class is a good thing” says Dale Junior High School principal, Kristen Levitin.

This new program is being tested out on 75 students with four or more unexcused absences. The GPS tracking device is given to each student, who is prompted to give their location via text message five times per day, with the last check-in time at 8pm.

The devices provide fact-checking evidence as to where the student actually is at the time of check in. Rick Martens, director of safe schools in Anaheim, explains, “so if the kid does text and say, ‘I’m here, I’m at school,’ but the GPS shows that they’re somewhere else, it obviously gives us some indicators that the student is now where he should be, and so we know to go look for them.”

Critics of this new program think GPS tracking is taking the issue too far. They believe that it is sending a message to the students that could be damaging to their self-esteem. “I feel like they come at us too hard, and making kids carry around something that tracks them seems extreme. This makes us seem like common criminals,” says Raphael Garcia, parent of a sixth grade student with six unexcused absences.

The program was developed by AIM Truancy Solutions, who worked closely with the school district. Assurances are being made to parents and students alike that the intent of the program is not to criminalize the students. Miller Sylvan, regional director of AIM, tried to quell concerns, saying, “We don’t want to criminalize the kids or have them wear any bracelet or something around their ankle that would stigmatize them. The students are frequently entering a code and interacting with the device, so we think it’s the best way to let them carry it.”

Article Written by Marisa O’Connor

School Administrators Realize the Benefits of GPS Tracking

February 11th, 2011

Parents calling complaining their kid was never picked up, school bus fleet managers wondering whether their bus drivers are really doing their job properly, administrators trying to keep track of fuel costs and travel time – all these problems are an intrinsic part of the relations between school bus drivers, parents, and staff. Or are they? Are these conflicts unavoidable or is there a solution? The Nashville Tennessee school district set out to find a working answer to the problems.

Their solution? A GPS vehicle tracking system. The school outfitted their school buses with these devices. When the bus driver turns the ignition the GPS locator turns on and starts working. Nashville, Tennessee isn’t the only city waking up to the benefits of these devices. In fact, they’re becoming a nationwide phenomenon. St. Paul, Minnesota, the other side of the country from Tennessee, has implemented a similar program to Nashville’s.

So how do these devices work? The devices work like any other GPS powered tracking device. They communicate with satellites orbiting the earth. These satellites allow them to pinpoint their location, and communicate that location to officials tracking bus locations. This system allows parents to feel safer about their child’s whereabouts. In fact, some school systems have taken the process a step forward and set up a fingerprint scanning system. Once a child enters the bus, he or she scans his fingerprint. That information and the GPS information is transmitted to a website which parents can then use to make sure their child is on board and headed toward school.

Some of us may wonder, how does all this information benefit me? I don’t have any school age children. Actually, it may benefit you greatly. The same technology used by these school systems in the same technology that businesses like UPS and FedEx use to track the location of their vehicles and packages. And that technology isn’t limited to those bigger companies. These systems can help a fleet manager track the whereabouts of employees, their use of company vehicles, idling time, unnecessary stops, wrong routes, etc. With this information, the fleet manager or business owner can analyze money saving possibilities and check on the honesty of employees.

Any business with some sort of fleet management requirements should look into GPS system. The benefits of the devices can’t be outdone.

Article Written by Greg Bartlett

School Systems Recoup Dollars with GPS Tracking

January 24th, 2011

With skyrocketing gasoline prices continuing to bite deeply into the the budgets of companies that maintain fleets, businesses are looking for ways to save money on fuel and operate more efficiently. A Georgia school system is is doing that by equipping its buses and part of its maintenance fleet with GPS tracking, thereby reducing fuel expenses and overtime.

The initial motivation for this move was an accreditation audit that found possible overtime overages in their transportation department. The purchase was required for their accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and has turned out to be a huge money saver even though it required an up front investment of $400,000. They estimate that they have saved $1 million in fuel costs alone since implementing the system.

The GPS tracking on the buses and other vehicles in their fleet tracks time employees spend in the vehicles and their locations which serves to increase their accountability. They have 500 school buses and 80 maintenance vehicles so teachers were concerned about the expenditure to equip so many vehicles but the savings have added up quickly. They can manage their personnel more effectively, making sure drivers are not clocking in well before the start of their shift. Another benefit is that drivers can check in with the unit and check out when they leave without having to go to an office to do that.

The GPS unit is mounted in cellphones in the buses. It does not give directions to the drivers, but instead allows the school system to know the location of each of its vehicles. An added benefit is that in emergency situations such as in the case of a missing child or some other critical scenario, the school system can pinpoint the location of each bus. The GPS tracking system also knows if a bus arrives at a stop on time or is running late which allows for better customer service if a parents calls in.

GPS tracking can benefit any school corporation by reducing fuel expenses and making it easier to manage personnel. In these days of high fuel prices, anything that compensates for that huge expense is a benefit. The additional benefit is that it adds to the parents’ peace of mind, knowing that the buses are being monitored which provides additional protection for their children. Schools would be wise to consider this cost effective investment.

Article Written by Greg Bartlett

Riding the Bus with GPS Fleet Tracking

December 29th, 2010

Has your child ever missed the school bus due to driver error? With GPS tracking, mistakes like this may be a phenomenon of the past. Many schools now equip every school bus with a location device that enables supervisors to monitor drivers and buses as they complete their routes each day. The devices not only help to ensure that drivers are where they say they are, but can also allow supervisors to offer assistance to new drivers who get lost or who accidentally miss a stop.

Disputes between parents and bus drivers about missed stops used to rely solely on the word of each party involved. Now, school officials can pull up a driver’s record and immediately see whether the driver missed a stop, whether he or she arrived early or late, or whether another error caused the problem. Conflicts or accusations can be dispelled easily with recorded evidence saved by the tracking device. By providing concrete information to bus route supervisors, GPS fleet tracking enables schools to keep employees accountable and to resolve disputes without causing unnecessary offense to either parents or drivers.

As school systems face increasing budget cuts, route monitoring can help reduce some of the squeeze by enabling better route management and planning, potentially saving thousands of dollars in fuel costs each year. By choosing the shortest routes between each stop, drivers can reduce the amount of fuel they use as well as the time spent driving. Those dollars can then be directed toward areas of greater need as each school looks for ways to reduce spending while offering the same quality education for every student.

More and more school systems now recognize the huge benefits of being able to monitor the location of each bus and driver at any time. While some drivers may initially display skepticism about the prospect of having all their movements monitored, most eventually realize the advantages offered by this capability, since they can provide concrete evidence of when and where they stopped should a parent complain about his child missing the bus. Parents, too, can rest assured that the technology will reduce the instances of missed stops, giving them greater confidence that their children will make it to school as scheduled.

GPS tracking places school officials and bus route supervisors in a position to knowledgeably manage each fleet of buses and their drivers, knowing that they can effectively work to resolve problems and to make sure that each child has a reliable ride to school each day.

Article Written by Greg Bartlett

School Districts Increase Efficiency with GPS Tracking

July 16th, 2010

School bus operators and commercial fleet managers have the same problems in managing their fleets. It can be difficult to gather precise information about what route was driven, how long stops took, and where a disabled vehicle is located. Lack of this information limits the ability to plan the most efficient route for each fleet vehicle. Some school districts are trying GPS fleet tracking technology to keep tabs on their buses.

Fleet tracking works like any other GPS tracking. Each vehicle in the fleet is equipped with a device that communicates with satellites to determine the location and movement of the vehicle. This information can be monitored constantly or checked at regular intervals, depending on the device and software used. It can be real-time or recorded for future study. Fleet tracking puts together a system to monitor multiple vehicles at the same time and record the information so it can be evaluated and compared. Companies then use the information to keep drivers accountable, calculate costs, and plan more efficient movement of people and freight.

The Omaha public school district tested GPS fleet management on five buses for six weeks this past spring. Transportation director David Wolfe was impressed with how helpful the information was. The GPS system was then selected by the Sherwood Foundation from a list of priorities to be paid for with a large grant.

The information from the GPS system will be used to monitor a variety of things. It will record when doors open and when the stop arm of a bus is used. It will record idle times so that routes can be adjusted to be more efficient. It will estimate arrival times for buses that are running late. It will show the location of a broken-down bus.

All of this information will help the school district run efficient routes, saving on fuel and other operating expenses. It will keep drivers accountable to drive both safely and efficiently. It will keep parents informed on where their children are and when they will arrive home. Most importantly, it will keep children safer because their location will be immediately known if a problem ever arises. More school districts should try fleet tracking with their buses and see the benefits of this valuable way to manage a fleet of vehicles with GPS tracking.

Article written by Greg Bartlett for Rocky Mountain Tracking, Inc.

Schools Eye GPS Tracking Technology

April 20th, 2010

Monitoring Students

School districts in the U.S. are always looking for new ways to monitor their student’s activities to ensure kids are attending class and are doing the right things. Spy gadget-type surveillance equipment in the form of cameras has been one of the predominate ways many schools have monitored students and improved security, but now there is an alternative option. The newest monitoring option for schools is the implementation of a GPS tracking system program. However, the alternative option has caused some unique reactions.

Schools & GPS Tracking

How the school districts would implement the GPS monitoring system program is by placing a GPS bracelet or anklet on a student who is required to be monitored. The type of student who would use the device would be considered “high-risk”. This type of student could be described as habitually truant, involved in gang-activities or simply problematic. The live tracking system would give school and security officials the ability to track and watch these “high risk” kids, ensuring they are attending class, or not getting involved in any harmful activities.

The data from the GPS tracking device would be accessible live, or the historical data could be viewed at later times.

Currently, only a small number of schools are using GPS tracking systems to keep a digital eye on “high risk” students. However, with this alternative form of technology becoming more affordable for cash-strapped schools, more schools will probably participate in GPS monitoring programs even if it is on a small scale or isolated students.

If you are a parent, do you feel these types of monitoring tools could help get kids considered “high risk” back on track?

Should educators be given this type of power to ensure kids are meeting their education goals, or is the use of GPS tracking technology going to far?

Ryan Horban is a guest author who specializes in writing about GPS technology and monitoring devices for Tracking System Direct.