Security Aspect
Bret Brooks, a law enforcement expert and school bus security trainer, noted there are currently many AI building-based security systems, such as standard metal detectors and infrared camera-based systems, that would be hard to transition to the bus envi- ronment. “Most of those systems aren’t compact or mo-
bile,” he explained. “It’s very difficult to put them on a school bus. I think in time, there’ll be more advantages available for that [technology] to be actually put on the school bus, but just from what I’ve seen, this is not quite there yet.” He added that the systems also have lim-
itations, and school bus drivers who see the children day in and out and can pick up on some of the long-term behavior changes that technology couldn’t. “You have a kid at the beginning of the school year, happy, cheerful says good morn- ing, and then they start coming in and they don’t seem themselves. They look disheveled. It’s over this period of time you can start to see maybe child abuse or child neglect,” Brooks observed. “The same thing applies to people that are going to be violent, especially children. For a period of time, that bus driver has to be able to identify those pre-incident indicators as far as behavioral changes, which complements the technology. This is what we could see in the future.” He explained that adding a layer of technol-
ogy to security processes is a benefit. “I think it’s a good thing,” Brooks explained. “But we have to be careful not to be over reliant on it. … You’ve got to still have the human element, and a human has to have the training and awareness to know what’s going on.” He added there could also be false posi-
tives with technology, as a scanning system could pick up a weapon that’s not actually in a child’s backpack. “We can’t always just jump to conclusions,” he said. Brooks made the analogy of airport em-
ployees searching a customer’s bag after the scanner triggers a potential threat, instead of instantly hauling the person off to jail with no questions asked. “We get into the legal issues and the policy
issues with, can a driver or a monitor search a kid’s backpack? That varies state to state. The legal aspect is something that is going to have to be examined as well,” he concluded.
52 School Transportation News • SEPTEMBER 2023
questions can log onto the web- site and instantly start chatting with the AI technology. She noted that she pre-programed frequently asked questions and answers into the backend. The system can differentiate the question being asked in differ- ent ways, and the AI response guides the customer to the correct answer.
She said the system went live
in July 2022, but it didn’t take off until last Oc- tober. “I went in and built what I thought people would be looking for,” she said, add- ing that users first interact with AI before getting to a live agent. When
20% yes
curating the responses and FAQ, Klenk said she started by thinking of the common questions that they get from parents at the start of the school year. Following the chat, the user
is given the option to rate their satisfaction with the automat- ed answer they receive. The AI system can point customers to a link, where they can find information on their student’s bus route. Sometimes the cus- tomer wants to get the answer in the chat right away and not to follow the other steps. “It does require a lot of man-
power on the back end,” she noted. “The more we utilize this system, the better it is. One of the things that I did this summer is I had the customer care represen- tatives go in and just start asking questions, like they were parents, to strengthen the responses.” She noted that at this time, the
Are your technology vendors taking steps to embrace AI technology?
14% No
phone calls haven’t decreased enough to where Klenk feels comfortable saying a big im- provement has been made with the adoption of AI customer service. Going forward, she said she wants to continue to improve the system. “It’s just training that chatbot on exactly what we deal with every day,” she said. “Going through that backside and utilizing that optimization. The more we
66% I don’t know
use it, the stronger it’s going to be. So that is ideally where I see it.”
She said the next step is evolv- ing the phone system to allow customers to speak commands when they call in. “The students are why we’re
here,” Klenk said of the im- portance of a robust customer service system. “And if we can do anything to improve the service that we provide to the families of our community, then it’s some- thing worth looking into.” ●
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