SPECIAL REPORT
help the driver by verifying that the driver went to each of the pre- and post-trip inspection points on the bus by touching the tablet to Radio Frequency ID tags. The tablet will send a report to the specified hub once the tablet has been docked. Many national accounts order this.” A Tyler Technologies representative declined comment
but noted that the company’s Drive tablet is also an IC Bus option.
Industry Challenges Kevin Mest, senior vice president for passenger ser-
vices for Zonar Systems, said installing technology at the factory is something that is being evaluated by all the bus manufacturers. Mest explained that there has been an interest in install- ing tablets or tablet mounts to accommodate the growing use of the technology over the past couple of years. But as OEMs reviewed the engineering required, it became apparent that there were some inherent challenges. “What tablet are you trying to support?” Mest began. “The mounting kit needs to support the size and weight requirements of the tablet. Unfortunately, there is a wide variety of tablets being used that continues to change, so how do you accommodate all makes? In addition, engineering a solution can take one to two years and the devices themselves continue to evolve and change. Lastly, many users have allowed drivers to use a mobile phone with appropriate restrictions, so they are moving away from a dedicated tablet.” Industry consultant Derek Graham works with routing
developer Edulog, and has spoken and written exten- sively on the pros and cons of tablet installation. Graham said that even though some of the same functions can be accomplished with an Android phone, he has noticed an increase in the deployment of tablets. But they were not necessarily installed by the OEMs. “Definitely the use of tablets has been increasing. I am not seeing this trend from the OEMs but there is a definite trend among school districts,” Graham said. “It’s a lot more common that school districts would install it themselves or have it installed by a dealer and not at the OEM level. My speculation is that they won’t make it standard because not all school districts will have a use for it even though it is be- coming more commonplace as the technology develops.” Graham suggested that open architecture is the key
to a successful effort to standardize the tablets, but even that should not be taken for granted. “We do a lot of work with stop-arm cameras, and it seems that you should be able to attach any camera head to the existing wiring,” he observed. “But that was not the case. There is still a lot of individuality among the technology solutions.” Meanwhile, Bill Westerman, vice president of product
18 School Transportation News • OCTOBER 2021
management for CalAmp, said the challenge with tablets is the Android operating system updates much more frequently during the life span of a typical school bus. “School buses have a long life span of about 15 years and technology updates every three to five years,” Westerman explained. “You’ve got an issue where tech- nology on a school bus would become obsolete because the bus will last so long, unless you have some way to ensure they could update the operating systems.” Westerman agreed that OEMs installing tablets would
expedite the process and ease support, if they could over- come the challenges. “The bigger issue is as operating systems evolve over time, can the hardware support those operating systems? Will they be able to support and main- tain the infrastructure given that school buses have a long life and technology changes faster?” he asked. Westerman noted that while the theoretical advan- tage is simplified installation at the factory and not via a third-party, aftermarket basis, many school districts buy buses from more than one manufacturer, and they likely will have different vintages of a bus from the same man- ufacturer. “There still might be a situation where schools will have to invest in aftermarket tablets in the short and medium terms,” Westerman suggested. Jean Souliere, CEO and founder of video camera and
stop-arm enforcement firm BusPatrol, said OEMs install- ing the tablets would increase parental peace of mind. That would be a boon to student transportation. “OEM tablet installations would be of higher quality
than what is possible with any third-party, aftermar- ket installation,” Souliere began. “Docking stations for tablets, regardless of quality, still feel at least ergonom- ically like something that was ‘put there.’ The asset management considerations associated with these ‘docked’ therefore removable tablets is also something that pupil transportation professionals have to deal with, thousands of buses mean thousands of tablets to track, charge, assign, maintain, etc.” Souliere continued adding that hardwired tablets
installed by bus manufacturers and using an open archi- tecture based on industry standards would provide pupil transportation software providers the physical platform required to deliver turn-by-turn navigation apps, driver level substitution functionality and safety camera visual- ization features to name a few. “This would also accelerate the adoption of these
applications by lowering the capital investment require- ments that the hardware currently imposes on school districts,” he concluded. “This infrastructure platform would also allow tighter integration to student manifest applications which would enable more accurate parent apps, improving ridership visibility and overall safety.”
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