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“The biggest advantage is the ease of mind for a new school bus
driver, especially one who is not familiar with the road network within our school district,” he said. Meanwhile, Klein Independent School District in Klein, Texas has 281 buses equipped with Samsung Tab Active3 tablets from SmartTag, a Secured Mobility company. The compact design of the tablet appeals to John Fergerson, the new director of transportation for the 23,000-student district. “It’s a perfect fit for our buses,” he noted. “The eight-inch design is big
enough that it can be seen by the drivers, but not so big that it takes up too much space on the bus’s dash. Most of our buses were not designed to have a space for a tablet, so when installing on our older buses, it’s important to have a purposeful and practical tablet.” The tablet features software for pre- and post-trip inspections, notifi-
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cations to drivers when a student attempts to get off at a stop that hasn’t been assigned, automatic transition from one route to another, and turn- by-turn navigation. Access to seating charts allows contact tracing when needed, and student medical information can be displayed in the event of a medical event on the bus. The software also serves transportation staff through an administrative portal, while a campus portal and a parent portal provide support for other users. Another plus is military-grade ruggedness of the tablets, which feature enhanced shock absorption and are highly dustproof and water resis- tant. Since tablets may be installed and removed up to three times a day, sometimes by multiple drivers, durability has been an important feature. “It was essential to our transportation department to have a tablet that could hold up to this use,” Fergerson explained. Overall performance has been solid, he added. While some technical
problems are unavoidable, solutions have typically been simple. “Over- whelmingly the tablets have functioned as designed,” he shared. “We have experienced some issues, but a restart has fixed our problems in most cases.” In another successful implementation, all 59 buses operated
by 5,800-student Bloomfield Hills Schools in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan have been equipped with tablets. The Samsung2 models, which features fleet management solutions from Zonar, have been especially useful in helping keep buses in top shape, Jane Mack, transportation director, said. “All [of] our vehicle inspections are now electronic with easy storage and
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quick access to see if daily inspections are being performed,” she said. “The garage gets an immediate look at what needs to be done and can send electronic work order completions to the driver.” H. Kevin Mest, senior vice president of passenger services at Zonar, explained that the verification process occurs when a driver uses a tablet to scan tags that have been placed in key inspection zones on the school bus that must be checked during every pre-trip inspection. With each scan, a populated list of inspection items generates on the tablet, elim- inating the need for a paper trail of inspection forms. This makes the driver’s job easier while also ensuring guarding against “pencil whip- ping,” where a driver may fill out a paper form without conducting an inspection. Mest recalled one customer reporting that before adopting Zonar’s Electronic Verified Inspection Reporting (EVIR), the only way he could
42 School Transportation News • JANUARY 2022
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