Houston ISD installed additional Safety Vision exterior cameras on 400 school buses that essentially give managers the ability to see complete views of events occurring inside and outside the school bus.
Mark Swackhamer, senior manager of fleet operations for the largest school district in Texas and seventh largest in the nation, said nearly all of the district’s 989 total school buses are already equipped with the Safety Vision SV-830 dome interior cameras. They work in conjunction with the company’s RoadRecorder 6000 Pro mobile DVR to monitor the entire passenger area, the stepwell and a driver’s view through the windshield.
The additional 400 school buses were retrofitted during the summer with three cameras. Safety Vision’s SV-835 and SV-690 models were installed. One camera was placed at the rear of the bus and one each installed on either side of the bus near the front of the vehicle. Swackhamer said events are triggered on video and can be manually downloadable by staff once the bus returns to the yard. There are no plans as of now to install stop-arm cameras.
“Now, we have 360 degrees of the inside, and we have approximately 360 degrees of the outside. There’s a small area, maybe 5 degrees, we’re not going to see. But for all intensive purposes we’re covered,” he told School Transportation News.
Swackhamer added that Houston ISD will complete similar exterior camera installations by the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year, starting with a new order placed earlier this month of 58 propane buses and 28 diesel buses from Blue Bird. The goal is to provide better support of drivers who are too often “on an island” when dealing with on-board behavior issues.
“We’re able to monitor more if there are student issues on the buses, and we’re also able to monitor drivers, because drivers are held accountable for student behavior,” he said.
Safety Vision’s President and CEO Bruce Smith said the company was happy to help Houston ISD accomplish its mobile videl goals, the most recent work performed during a relationship that spans a decade.
“The addition of exterior cameras on HISD’s school buses will provide an increased level of surveillance coverage to aid in the identification of any problematic events that may occur and get them rectified, easily and quickly,” he said in a statement.
The new cameras supplement additional training provided to drivers in recent months, including Red Cross first aid and CPR certification, courses on student management and railroad crossing safety. By the end of September, Swackhamer said all drivers are expected to also complete hands-on driver training to teach fuel-saving techniques by using the bus’ momentum to the driver’s advantage rather than hard braking or hard starting. The district’s 16 driver trainers completed the course this summer.
