Organization
Pacific Western Transportation ensures children within the Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, B.C. area travel to and from school safely. With the experience of serving the school bus industry for the past years, they have been transporting children within the area for the past 4 years for School District #42. With 33 employees in the Maple Ridge division, they maintain 25 school buses to serve the 21 routes — 15 regular routes and routes for special needs children.
Challenge
With the bus driver being the authoritative figure on-board, difficult for them to keep a watchful eye on the students pay attention to the road while they drive. In most cases, incidents would happen and driver wouldn't see it, losing opportunity to deal with the student or students involved. The School District also directed that the buses be equipped with system that would be able to assist in student management, improve on-board safety, and provide information on the driving conditions of the bus.
Solution
All of the regular routes were equipped with a SWS310 system, which consists of an interior camera and VCR recorder. Later one of the systems was upgraded to the Digital Chaperone system, which consists of an interior camera, an exterior camera that records when the stop arm is activated, and a digital recorder. The students are aware they are being monitored and that has helped to improve safety and assist the driver with discipline. For the occassions where a student acts inappropriately, the situation can be reviewed when the bus is back at the depot and the student is dealt with in a disciplinary manner thereafter.
A+ for safety
All of the regular routes were equipped with a SWS310 system, which consists of an interior camera and VCR recorder. Later one of the systems was upgraded to the Digital Chaperone system, which consists of an interior camera, an exterior camera that records when the stop arm is activated, and a digital recorder. The students are aware they are being monitored and that has helped to improve safety and assist the driver with discipline. For the occassions where a student acts inappropriately, the situation can be reviewed when the bus is back at the depot and the student is dealt with in a disciplinary manner thereafter.
To ensure that the bus is driven in a safe manner, the recorders have been configured to record speed, turn indicators, hazard lights, red lights and brakes over the video.
