The Zonar ZPass RFID system for student tracking on school buses won a bronze medal as a 2011 Edison Best New Product.
ZPass won third place in the Innovative Services for Health, Wellness, and Safety category, one of twelve categories honored by the Edison Awards, which were announced this week at the historic Capitale ballroom in New York. Zonar was named a finalist in February.
The internationally-renowned awards named after Thomas Alva Edison recognize America’s drive to remain in the forefront of innovation, creativity and ingenuity in the global economy.
“This year’s Awards recognized a broad array of innovations including far-reaching products, services and technologies that impact daily life,” said Sarah Miller Caldicott, the Edison Awards Steering Committee chair and a great grandniece of Thomas Edison. “The Awards applauded the forward-thinking innovations for which Thomas Edison remains internationally admired. It’s exciting to see companies like Zonar continuing his legacy of challenging conventional thinking.”
ZPass utilizes a powerful combination of passive radio frequency identification (RFID), GPS tracking, wireless communications and Ground Traffic ControlTM, Zonar’s Web-based fleet management portal, to help school districts ensure the safety of bus-riding students by providing districts with real-time information about when and where students entered and exited the bus.
“We are both proud and honored to be the only telematics company recognized with this prestigious award,” said Chris Oliver, vice president of marketing at Zonar. “Challenging ourselves to continually provide innovative, customer-focused solutions has been and will always be our focus.”
The ballot of nominees for the Edison Best New Product Awards were judged by 2,000 members of the non-profit Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG), an organization comprising America’s top marketing professionals and academics. In a comprehensive peer-review process, the nominees were judged on Marketplace Innovation, Marketplace Success, Technological Innovation, Market Structure Innovation, Societal Impact, and Design Innovation.
