need to replace the entire bus.” Kierna said company scale and the diverse fleet have pushed First Student to think differently about how to deploy innovation. “We’re investing in technology that can be integrated
across both new and existing buses, allowing us to bring enhanced safety capabilities to more vehicles sooner rather than waiting for replacement cycles,” he shared. “That flexibility is critical to making advanced safety technology more accessible and ensuring more students and drivers can benefit from it today.”
Smart Technology as Smart Policy With the advent of more and better technology, OEMs
are seeing a heightened interest in not just advanced braking technology but all types of smart technologies. This includes connected V2X, or Vehicle-to-Everything, a wireless communication technology that allows a vehicle to share real-time data with its surrounding environment, and interest in “smart-on-the-road” technologies. “Overall, I believe we’re moving from early adoption
to broader acceptance as districts become more familiar with the benefits of these systems, and implementa- tion costs continue to come down,” Milewsi said. “One benefit of IC Bus being a member of the global TRATON organization is that we’re able to leverage research and engineering resources used to deploy safety technology in other commercial vehicle segments and offer them to our own bus customers more efficiently than we’d be able to do on our own.” Kirena added, “Ultimately, being smart on the road
isn’t about adding technology for the sake of technology. It’s about using it at scale to turn data from across the First Student network into actionable insights that can be shared across our operations, allowing teams to learn from experiences and trends beyond their own loca- tions. Putting that information in the hands of drivers and transportation teams at the right time helps them make more informed decisions, anticipate risks and keep students safe and on time. First Student is already putting that vision into practice while continuing to set
the standard for what a safer, smarter and more con- nected student transportation experience can look like.” Hanna said connected transportation will dramatical-
ly change school bus operations over the next decade. “Today, Rossville already experiences many of the
benefits of connected technology through Zonar [Sys- tems],” he explained. “Transportation leadership knows exactly where buses are located through GPS. We receive notifications when buses leave designated locations, ar- rive at school, exceed speed thresholds, or remain idling for extended periods. Drivers also have turn-by-turn routing available on tablets, improving consistency and reducing navigation challenges.” The next evolution is allowing school buses to com-
municate with the transportation office, emergency responders, infrastructure, and eventually other vehicles. “Imagine a school bus approaching an intersec-
tion while communicating with traffic signals,” Hanna continued. “Imagine a system that recognizes a vehicle approaching a stopped school bus too quickly and alerts both drivers. Imagine emergency dispatch receiving the exact location, direction of travel and bus identification immediately following an emergency notification.”
A Changing Consensus for School Boards Given the rise of new technology solutions and their
wider adoption by many transportation entities, school boards and school transportation officials are increas- ingly championing technology and of substantiating the necessary investment in the name of safety. First Student’s Kierna explained that the AI-powered technology platform HALO unifies routing, dispatch, driver management and coaching, payroll, navigation, telematics, vehicle tracking, and maintenance into a single, intelligent platform. “It supports a fleet of more than 48,000 vehicles oper-
ating across 42 U.S. states and eight Canadian provinces, helping manage approximately 4.8 million student journeys every day,” he noted. “A key part of HALO is its integration of AI-powered cameras and driver coach- ing technologies, which provide real-time visibility into
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PHOTO COURTESY OF BROKEN ARROW PUBLIC SCHOOLS
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