INDUSTRY CONNECTIONS
Houston ISD Selects Safety Vision for Exterior Bus Surveillance Cameras
New Incident Management Solution Aims to Improve District Consistency
Tyler Technologies released its
Web-based Incident Management solution to help student transporters, educators and school administrators record and track school bus events. “Tyler Incident Management is
Houston Independent School District
installed additional Safety Vision exterior cameras on 400 school buses to give man- agers the ability to see complete views of events inside and outside the school bus. Mark Swackhamer, senior manager of
fleet operations for the largest school dis- trict in Texas, said nearly all of their 989 school buses are already equipped with the Safety Vision SV-830 dome interior cameras. Tey work with the company’s RoadRecorder 6000 PRO mobile DVR to monitor the entire passenger area, the step well and the driver’s view through the windshield. Te additional 400 school buses were
retrofitted during the summer with three cameras. Safety Vision’s SV-835 and SV- 690 models were installed, with one camera placed at the rear of the bus and one each installed on either side of the bus near the front. Swackhamer said events are triggered on video and can be manu- ally downloaded by staff. “Now, we have 360 degrees of the in-
side, and we have approximately 360 degrees of the outside. Tere’s a small area, maybe 5 degrees, we’re not going to see. But for all intents and purposes, we’re covered,” he said. Swackhamer added that Houston ISD
would complete similar exterior cam- era installations by the beginning of the 2013–2014 school year, starting with a new order placed earlier this month for 58 new propane-powered buses and 28 diesel buses from Blue Bird. Te cameras do not record illegal passers.
the first solution attached to trans- portation software that addresses schools’ need to track and manage information about serious incidents, such as bullying,” said James Guze- wich, president of Tyler’s Versatrans School Solution. In addition to bullying, the com-
pany said the solution enables school personnel to follow consis- tent processes for a range of events. For example, the software records and manages incidents of school bus vandalism and ensures proper district protocols are followed after a bus crash while maintaining a da- tabase of contacts dispatchers can access in an emergency. It also assists districts in managing
any medical emergencies involving students or staff as well as disciplin- ary action for both groups. Te company is hosting two free
webinars Oct. 4 and Oct. 9 to dem- onstrate how school districts can use this solution to comply with state and/or
local anti-bullying laws or
guidelines. Tyler said Incident Man- agement is flexible enough to also accommodate future legislation.
Contractor CEO Discusses School Options on PBS’ ‘Nightly Business Report’
STI’s Denis Gallagher Despite the current economic climate,
one school bus company is optimistic about growth in their industry. Denis Gallagher, founder and CEO of Student Transportation Inc. (STI), discussed the expanding role of school bus contractors Aug. 15 on PBS’ “Nightly Business Report.” Currently, about two-thirds of school
districts nationwide operate their own bus fleets, yet more are considering outsourc- ing services to save money. “If school districts want to raise money,
they’ve got to raise taxes, so we can look at this from a different perspective. We can make investments into communities,” said Gallagher, who 15 years ago started the company that is now the nation’s third- largest school bus contractor. STI operates in 16 states and Canada, and
transports about 600,000 students daily. Gallagher has grown the company largely through acquisitions. Tree years ago he bought Jordan Transportation in Butler, N.J., still run by the founder’s son, Mark Jordan. Jordan emphasized that STI brought
benefits to the table, including purchas- ing power, extra logistics and newer school buses equipped with the latest technology. “It really is a beautiful blend between the
This shows how personnel create and track an incident through the Incident Management solution.
16 School Transportation News Magazine October 2012
family-run branding name that happens on the local level (and) a lot of the abilities that come with a larger corporate struc- ture,” said Jordan.
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