INDUSTRY CONNECTIONS
Part of the Package
GPS ADDS EFFICIENCY, PEACE OF MIND TO TENNESSEE DISTRICT’S ROUTING AND TRACKING OF SCHOOL BUSES
WRITTEN BY ART GISSENDANER
tation director for the Clarks- ville-Montgomery County School System nine years ago, there was a culture of casual- ness that he said kept a good transportation department from getting better. When a parent called saying
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their child’s bus was late or early or did not show up at all, Lumpkin had no way of know- ing the cause, short of getting on the road and looking for the bus in question. “I think one issue we encountered on a
daily or weekly basis is the route analyst has routed a bus to pick a child up, and a call will come in that the bus driver is late or the bus driver is a no-show,” Lumpkin recalled. “So we talked to the driver and we thanked the parent for calling in. Ten the parent calls back again the next day and says the driver is not on time again. Tis is very common in transportation.” Lumpkin said physically driving to the bus stop or tracking the bus down in the com- munity was costly in man-hours and fuel. “It took me away from all the other things I was paid to do,” he said. Lumpkin said whenever the bus driver
disagreed with parents, the situation escalat- ed into a “he said, she said” affair that only increased frustration levels. “It was a constant back-and-forth struggle.” And that wasn’t all. Besides having to
monitor 283 bus routes, Lumpkin became acutely aware of fuel costs in what he estimated is among the top-five largest bus fleets in Tennessee. Clarksville-Montgom- ery transports about 26,000 of the district’s 30,000 students daily. “It’s tough trying to keep up with the
16 School Transportation News June 2013
hen Ricky Lumpkin as- sumed the job of transpor-
drivers,” he said. “You can train them, but when they get outside the gate they are unsupervised, and we had no way of knowing what they were doing out there in regards to speeding, staying on their routes or excessive idling.” Creative, cost-effective solutions were
needed. Lumpkin brought together a roundtable discussion comprising of district safety officers, the chief operations officer, the master driver, dispatchers and bus drivers to address the situation. Tat’s where installing GPS software was suggested. “We talked about RFID (radio frequency
identification) as well because we want- ed to know who is on the bus and when they got on the bus,” Lumpkin said. “Tis conversation brought us full circle because we had no idea what our buses were doing once they went out the gate, unless someone called and told us.” Lumpkin said the district turned to the
Trapeze Group four years ago for routing software supplemented with GPS (Global Positioning System) and AVL (Automated Vehicle Locator). “(GPS) offers so much," Lumpkin said.
"You can see the impact with parents. Tere’s nothing better than to receive a call from a
parent asking about their child and being able to look at the screen and tell them their bus is about two miles from their home. Te technology provides a live update on
the precise position of each bus about every seven or eight seconds. "You can see the bus move along the route
on the big screen on the wall,” he added. Lumpkin said GPS and AVL have raised
driver awareness as well. “It’s not that we thought they weren’t doing a good job, but now they know we are serious, and we’re making this investment because we want to deliver service.” Te solution is paid for by grants ob- tained with the help of the district’s safety office, so Lumpkin said no taxpayer money is being taken away from the classroom. So far, 113 of the district’s 317 buses have been outfitted. He said it is too early to place a dollar amount on the savings. Meanwhile, Lumpkin said many parents
are not yet ready for student tracking. “It would be nice to have student track-
ing because we could tell the parent when their child exited the bus and where,” he added. “Tat’s good for a parent to know. I think any parent would love to have that, but now it’s a tough sell.”
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