Hinerfeld said that now available on digital two-way radios is the ability for drivers to hit a button that records the start of their shift, or route, by entering their employee ID and transmitting that back to base. Bennett also suggested that districts should investigate digital if, for example, officials need two or three days to answer pa- rental questions about their child’s bus route. “How often are you having issues where
the community believes you are speeding through a neighborhood? Driving reckless- ly? Do you have data to share?” he asked. “From a security perspective, from Newtown (Conn.) to (Midland City) Alabama, are you being asked for a different view of security from getting on to getting off and everything in between? Is your superintendent asking you to provide security in a better way?”
SELECTING DIGITAL SYSTEMS
School districts have additional choices to make when it comes to the type of digital
system they want to operate. Commercial carriers offer low initial cap- ital funding costs, reliable coverage for fre- quent routes or field trips that travel outside city or county lines and fewer operational and system maintenance expenses, the latter of which can be even more attractive for smaller fleets. But with commercial systems, there can be less employee and system control, no priority access, limited security features, and system access difficulties during major emergencies. Additionally, there various other device features that do not support district communication systems objectives but that are provided, anyway. More and more districts are turning to
private systems because they are more robust, said Rob Russell, vertical channel account manager for Motorola Solutions, Inc. Essen- tially, the district owns private systems rather than paying monthly service charges for off-the-shelf commercial systems.
“With private, it’s completely customizable with as many talk groups that they need, and they can add any apps they wish,” he said. Meanwhile, commercial offers the same digital enhancements of a private system, but with a wider coverage area. “(Commercial) is less expensive than
cellular, I would argue,” Russell added. Bennett likened a private network to a
school bus communicating on its own is- land, or in this case, its own UHF network, which he said school districts have histori- cally chosen to purchase. “It’s an equation of cost versus service. Te cost made sense for them to have their own network,” he said. “What has changed is the cost of the service. Both hardware and recurring costs have dropped significantly. Now we’re in the digital realm of packaged data. Tis is substantially more efficient and cost-effective. Te ecosystem is so much larger, and the wireless world has so many more options.”
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48 School Transportation News April 2013
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