Board considers school bus GPS tracking system

LOWER POTTSGROVE >> The Pottsgrove School Board held off on voting to install global positioning system software and hardware in its school buses Tuesday night.

Board members Ashley Custer and Jim Lapic questioned the price of about $200 per bus for installation when they had information suggesting the process takes just minutes.

The overall cost of the contract is just over $17,000 according to the information included in last night’s agenda.

There would be another monthly fee of $571 for the

software if the school board ultimately accepts the recommendation to go with Eagle Wireless and its Geotab System.

Business Manager David Nester said the district runs 56 transportation vehicles and that there are several advantages of the system.

The fact that the Pennsylvania Auditor General will no longer accept the district’s tracking software as acceptable documentation for the $1.1 million in transportation aid Pottsgrove gets every year is one of the things that makes the new system advantageous Nester said.

The alternative is to have drivers keep track by hand. School Board President Robert Lindgren was incredulous that the district’s tracking software is no longer acceptable.

“Did the length of Mauger’s Mill Road change in the last year?” he asked in exasperation.

The GPS system would also allow the district to more quickly locate buses during emergencies, such as

the November, 2018 surprise snow storm which had some buses get stranded and students hours late

in arriving home, said Nester.

He also said Pottsgrove is one of only three districts in Montgomery County that do not have such systems.

In June, Boyertown Area School District announced GPS and internal and exterior camera systems

would be installed on all 185 of its vehicles at no cost to the district. The cost was borne by the Quigley Bus Company which at the same time signed a five-year contract with Boyertown.

Boyertown also announced a smartphone app called “Here

Comes the Bus,” which allows parents to track their children’s school bus in real time. partnership with

Launched in 2015 by Indianabased Synovia Solutions following more than a decade in the school bus fleet management industry,

the mobile app has more than a million downloads and boasts approximately 350,000 daily users across North America.

Lindgren told Schools Superintendent William Shirk that the board would take up the issue again at an upcoming meeting.