School buses can be a daunting and even hostile environment, especially for students who are victims of bullying. New in-vehicle camera technology can identify students who may be bullying, fighting, or otherwise misbehaving. You can also see the cause of the conflict.

"We are making basic improvements and we can see acceleration through technology. This is one of the most influential things in our industry," said Chris Akiyama, vice president of Safe Fleet's school bus department, which includes Seon bus monitoring systems and fleets. manage. "This allows us to deal with an accident in the passenger part of the bus. We have a camera in the middle of the bus that moves from east to west. It allows us to better see and monitor what we won't see Behavior. We changed the way the camera was installed and the area of ​​focus."

There are many cameras on the market that can provide a 360-degree bird's-eye view to reveal what is happening behind each high-back seat, which is traditionally a blind spot for the driver.

"We have installed more cameras and microphones on the buses, which allows us to hear the bullying that is happening," said Akiyama. “We can see the misbehavior in the context of its occurrence. We isolate what happened. If the incident happens behind the bus, we can focus on the microphone and camera and determine what happened.

"We can install cameras on the outside of the bus," he continued. "This allows us to see the background of the incident on the bus and what caused the incident. We consider the technology and how it works. This new smart technology allows more facial recognition. Misbehavior has been recorded to us In our case management system. We can see the behavior of each seat. We can install more cameras and microphones."

Installing more cameras on buses helps school leaders establish the background that causes problems on the buses. "We provide products such as student tracking and GPS. Our video system allows us to influence changes through the use of video, and we can pair it with seating plans and tasks," said Akiyama.

The bus driver can press the emergency button to send an accident report about what happened on the bus through a real-time stream. Information is quickly recorded and uploaded to the server. Administrators can view the context of the event, and can also view how the event occurred from beginning to end.

"If a parent calls and says his child has been bullied, we can see exactly what happened," he said. "We can record bus locations and specific events. Because we have more cameras, we can record conversations between the students involved."

Speech analysis and artificial intelligence are still under development, and as it improves, it will be easier for schools to understand what is happening on the bus. Students will also know that their behavior on the school bus is being recorded.

For example, the Frisco Independent School District outside of Dallas upgraded its video surveillance system because the ability to download videos wirelessly is an important criterion, explained Gebekker, the main traffic pipeline in the area.

“We have three different bus parking lots, so when we ask for a video clip, our employees usually have to go to one of the locations to retrieve it,” he shared. "During emergencies or sensitive investigations, we have no time to waste. This is why we want a better solution to meet our needs."

Frisco ISD chose a video system with a five-channel high-definition mobile DVR, five indoor cameras and wireless access. With Seon's vMax Commander video management software, any authorized transportation personnel can log in from anywhere and arrange to download video clips for incident investigation. The challenge is to improve the safety of drivers and students and find an effective video surveillance system that requires faster response to surveys and faster scheduling of downloading videos from any location.

"We used to have a staff member whose job was to chase videos everywhere," Becker said. "Now this person is helping us manage the fleet, and there are several people who can access data from different locations as needed. We don't waste time searching for videos anymore."

With the help of the new system, Frisco ISD can resolve parental complaints faster. When a bullying incident occurs on a bus, transportation personnel can find video clips and provide evidence within a few minutes, and implement it seamlessly. “We have a very aggressive timetable and installed video surveillance equipment on 250 buses in 10 weeks,” Becker said.

In addition, school bus drivers can be trained to deal with school bus bullies. "We conducted driver awareness training and used cameras to determine what was going on. If there was a fight or bullying, we could see exactly what was going on," commented Arby Creach, director of transportation services at the Osceola District School in Florida road. "We can identify students who may be bullied based on their personality. These students may be shy or introverted and will not refuse. Other students may be noisy, reckless, and may bully other students. We try to keep noisy and arrogant students away Shy and introverted student."

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Doug Dyment, President and CEO of Gatekeeper Systems, said that he has been following the development of video technology for many years. Gatekeeper provides digital video recorders, high-resolution cameras and event management software. The latest digital video recording technology allows school administrators to view events between students on the school bus in real time. The company's internal camera has very high resolution and infrared technology, allowing accurate viewing in any light conditions (including no light). The camera also includes a microphone with clear recording.

"Our customers can collect video recordings from the bus. We have software applications that manage this data. Data analytics puts the video on the sensor and then pushes it back to the server, where they can see what is happening," Dyment said.

One problem on the school bus is false liability.

"We are developing algorithms so that when something like a fight occurs on the bus, the alert can be sent to the appropriate person," he added. "This can curb bullying. Using our cloud-based software, operators can quickly spot incidents so that administrators can stop the behavior."

There are also video systems that allow the camera to provide a 360-degree view and view the situation around the blind spot. "These cameras can curb bad behavior, and we can take specific records of what happened on the bus. It's about paying attention to issues to improve safety," Diment said.

Gatekeeper's G4 Viewer Plus event management software allows administrators to retrieve video from the bus wirelessly at any time, even if the bus is not running. Event management software allows video to be synchronized with integrated GPS maps, vehicle sensors, alarms, and audio to view events from all angles. You can also view real-time streaming video and quickly identify and respond to incidents.

Bus drivers can receive training to deal with school bus bullying. "We conducted driver awareness training, and we used cameras to determine what happened. If a fight or bullying occurred, we could see exactly what happened," Reach said. "We can identify students who may be bullied based on their personality. These students may be shy or introverted and will not refuse. Other students may be noisy, reckless, and may bully other students. We try to keep noisy and arrogant students away Shy and introverted student."

He added that safety is the most important thing on the bus. If a fight breaks out, the driver should stop by the side of the road. If the driver thinks it is safe to do so, he can intervene. However, if the driver feels threatened or unsafe at the time of the breakup, he or she can ask for help. "I don't expect a driver to stop two high school students from fighting. I will ask the driver to keep other children away from the fight and seek help," Kreich said.

Edward Flavin, a spokesperson for school bus contractor National Express, said preventing bullying has always been an issue. “We keep pace with our customers to ensure that “safety first” behavior is demonstrated on our vehicles. We also work with them to ensure that bullying is not tolerated at any time. If we receive any cases involving bullying , We will report to our customers and they will deal with the situation quickly," Flavin said.