Living Sky School Division Transportation Manager Trevor Horton began a recent presentation showing images of division buses inunusual circumstances.
In one photo, a bus was burned with the front end blackened, while in another, two buses were flooded, and one of them was an SGI write-off due to quick, heavy rain.
School bus fires, Horton said, can be due to added components to vehicles. Hot diesel fuel can also cause problems.
Evacuations will be the topic of upcoming bus driver safety initiatives, beginning Oct. 22. According to Horton's report, evacuation will be a theme for driver safety, and division representatives will travel to communities "to conduct one-on-one training alongside our winter driving safety refresher."
According to Horton's report, 3,102 students are registered to transport. The division has acquired new buses, and the average age of the bus fleet is now five years.
Horton also talked about Zonar, GPS technology that provides "real-time insight into the bus fleet." Zonar tracks a number of things, including where buses are and if they're speeding, open doors and a number of things that cause dashboard lights on the bus to illuminate.
"Currently, we receive an email and text when a driver is speeding, excessivly idling, demonstrating dangerous behaviour or is in the wrong place," Horton's report said.
Another goal of the technology, Horton said, is to save the division money, such as with fuel costs if buses idle longer than division staff think they need to.
Zonar is installed on "about a third of the fleet," Horton said, and it is intended to install the technology on 63 full-time CUPE routes. The target date for full installation, according to Horton's report, is 2020/2021.
For future consideration, Horton's report said, Zonar also offers Z-Pass, in which "students carry a small card that automatically logs their bus entry or exit event," in order for "parents and ourselves [to] know the date, time and location when a student boards or exits." Safe Stop is, "a school bus tracking app that parents and caregivers can use on their smartphone to track bus location, estimated time of arrival, delay announcements or last minute route changes via instant notifications to their cellular device."
Another future consideration is Z-Forms, which would "eliminate paper forms, track compliance and performance, send messages to all or one driver," and also features accident recording and reporting.
