Back to School — Keeping Track of the Kids - Global Positioning System tested on school buses - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Public Roads, Nov, 2000

Children who ride school buses in West Paterson Borough, N.J., will test a first-of-its-kind monitoring system that electronically checks in students as they get on the bus and tracks the vehicle along its route.

Buses and individual children will carry equipment linking them to the monitoring system. A global positioning system and a video monitoring camera on the bus will track student pickups and scheduling, as well as the speed of the vehicle. Meanwhile, children will carry electronic identification cards, allowing school officials or police using computers to track who has gotten on and off the bus.

Information and video images picked up by the equipment will be transmitted from buses to computer terminals via wireless cellular communications. Computer terminals will be in either the district's administrative offices or the police department.

Thoreb North America, a company with headquarters in Sweden and offices in West Caldwell, N.J., asked the Board of Education in February if it would agree to test the system for one year without charge, beginning in September. The system will be the first of its kind for public school use in the United States; however, the system has been used in public buses in Europe.

The system will be installed in six buses owned by University Bus Co., with which the district contracts to provide bus service to several hundred borough children. At the end of the school year, if West Paterson decides to continue using the system, it will be able to keep the equipment at no cost. The district would have to pay only for the service.

The company received a $250,000 grant from the New Jersey Department of Commerce to develop the system, which is known as "KomFram." It will be marketed to other school districts once testing has been completed.