FIRST TAKE Technology Leading the Way WRITTEN BY RYAN GRAY | RYAN@STNONLINE.COM T


he STN EXPO, as with any student transportation conference, is seemingly over in the blink of an eye. All the months, years even, of planning culminate in the fastest


six days imaginable. Te days are long, don’t get me wrong, often spanning 16 to 18 hours. I wake early to put the finishing touches on an e-newsletter being deployed that morning or I’m coordinating with the A/V team on that morning’s keynote speaker. I finally get to bed after eight hours of sessions, the trade show, that evening’s event—and writing a blog or news article on some of the day’s events. But I’m invigorated the entire time—well, most of the


time. It always seems that I barely arrive in Reno and the next thing I know the conference and trade show are over. Time flies by due to the good time had in networking and catching up with old friends, meeting new ones and learning about the latest trends and solutions. Part of this education and outreach is getting to know an industry professional better. Tis summer, that person was Tim Shannon. Gracing our cover this month, Shannon came to the school transportation industry shortly after the Great Recession began, as did many professionals. Te economy dried up his family’s photography lab business and he wasn’t keen on selling insurance, especially since few people had disposable income to buy it. So, much to the surprise of his family, he decided he’d drive a school bus. Te path Shannon took to eventually leading the Twin


Rivers Unified School District in Sacramento is one familiar to many student transporters. Te journey he’s taken his department and administration on in terms of technology adoption is more unique. He recounted to me that he started to climb the transportation ladder when his former boss realized he was the only one who could figure out the office printer. Tat led to Shannon being named the interim director a couple of years later after his predecessor moved to another district and, eventually, the full-time director. What Shannon has accomplished since then has taken a school district with 85 percent of its students


12 School Transportation News • SEPTEMBER 2017


receiving free or reduced lunch and turned on its ear any argument that school bus technology can only be implemented quickly in wealthy districts. Shannon’s fleet transports students from the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in Sacramento. Instead of saying transportation can’t, he has taken the opposite approach to rely on technology and use the data and efficiencies drawn from it to make the case to the school administration that, yes, transportation can. And transportation at Twin Rivers does, as evidenced by this month’s articles, not to mention one earlier this summer on the the district’s adoption of electric buses. Examples of innovative technology and out-of-the-box thinking are rife in this month’s edition. Perhaps your operation has implemented some of the same solutions, such as real-time routing to more efficiently push instant information on updates to drivers. Or maybe you, too, have taken GPS from simply telling you the location of school buses to pulling telematics data that can inform you about how drivers are performing behind the wheel. Your technicians might receive engine diagnostic data that informs them of a potential mechanical issue before it becomes one. Or do you remain on the sideline, waiting to see how all this technology shakes out, or until it comes down in price? Technology is going nowhere but up. Get in the game now, if not ahead of the curve like Tim Shannon and several other leaders in the industry highlighted this month. Tey are winning the argument on the importance of school busing in the communities because they have the data to back them up. 


Ryan Gray, Editor-in-Chief


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