GPS Infrastructure Depends on User

District's desire to track bus locally or across multiple counties or states drives decision on two-way radio or cellular coverage

Ryan Gray | Senior Editor

Your school district is looking at adding GPS to its school bus operations, and there's a very big decision to make besides, of course, how to pay for it: two-way radios or cellular phones?

"We like the cellular," says Lynn Hower, director of transportation for Fort Wayne, Ind. Community Schools. "Our district is big enough we would have had to add radio towers."

Fort Wayne currently has 250 of its 308 buses equipped with Synovia's GPS solutions that use cellular networks, and the amount of field trips run out of town plus the number of buses serviced outside the district dictates cell as the better choice for Hower's operations. While technically more expensive over the long-run, she adds the tracking system is worth the money, especially "in this day and age and the possibility of the bus being hijacked, not having spent that money and having that scenario pop up."

But what about the myriad school districts nationwide that have used line-of-sight radio towers for decades to allow communication between bus drivers and dispatch? It's clearly an issue of preference. Many schools can realize cost savings by sticking with existing two-way radios to transmit GPS data - it's important to note GPS is an entirely separate transmission than voice-to-voice relays because of the vehicle data involved - from school buses, as the price of cell air-time can literally put a transportation department in the red.

"Voice radios are not built for the high-volume data demands of real-time GPS (satellite) tracking," explains Dave Pettine, vice president of sales marketing at GPS provider Everyday Wireless.

So the cell option is best, right? Not so fast.

In consultation with providers, schools should first decide exactly what kind of GPS reporting it desires. Is there routing and maintenance software to be integrated? What specific school bus "events" - anything from vehicle location and speed to the number of times the stop arm is deployed - should be recorded? And, perhaps most importantly, how far away do your buses travel, both on regular route service and on activity trips?

"In our experience, the cellular networks are more reliable, provide more real-time coverage, and offer flexibility with future options like student tracking," says Brad Bishop, the chief operating officer for GPS hardware provider Synovia. "The primary benefits are coverage and simplicity."

It's also important to note that Synovia's GPS systems send real-time data via Cingular, Sprint-Nextel and Verizon networks. By using a major cellular carrier, Bishop said districts can track the entire fleet real-time, regardless if buses are traveling locally or abroad on a field trip. Also, there is no infrastructure to maintain, such as radio towers, base stations and additional radio frequencies, or RF, all of which carry with them up-front expenses. The GPS solution is fully scalable - school bus operators can add student tracking, text messaging, camera integration and other "events" without affecting network capacity.

"A district can buy RF infrastructure and only track buses locally, or they can pay a nominal fee and track anywhere," Bishop says, adding that he believes, "Also, these (cell) rates are coming down every year. And if the district wants to add student tracking down the road, they should seriously consider using a major cellular network that has built-in capacity.

Bishop says cell costs for bus tracking have fallen approximately 75 percent during the past few years and can now be paid annually to assist districts with budget cycles.

He says clients, which number approximately 30 districts and 1,500 systems installed nationwide, often realize a per-bus rate-of-return on GPS that "easily surpasses" the average cellular network charge of $10 per month per vehicle.

Everyday Wireless, which emerged as a main player in the school bus GPS market six years ago, records basically the same real-time bus information but in a slightly different manner. The company based in Concord, Mass., utilizes a dedicated UHF two-way radio GPS transmission that handles the flow of district bus data. The TX-3M system requires infrastructure Synovia does not. But Pettine added Everyday plans to roll out a cellular package this summer.

While paying for additional FCC radio frequency licenses and additional radio towers, current Everyday customers - of which the company says there are more than 60 nationwide using GPS on more than 6,000 school buses - who use the TX-3M don't have to piggyback on the district's existing voice infrastructure, precisely what many "out of the box" GPS providers do. The system requires separate antennas that can be erected at the same location as the district's existing radio towers or on top of the various schools the district serves.

"We can operate 400 buses on one radio frequency - much higher than the 30 to 175 buses per frequency we have seen on piggy-back systems," Pettine says, adding voice systems have, "too much noise and chatter, and there's no way you can get real-time GPS data flowing across."

Whatever solution is chosen, both Everyday and Synovia say districts must ensure the GPS systems are scalable solutions capable of capturing all possible data, especially when considering the cost of implementing the technology.

"You're basically rolling the dice with a million dollars," says Pettine.

Dallas County Public Schools uses Everyday Wireless' UHF solution to track its fleet. Leatha Mullins, the district's director of technology, says Dallas' entire fleet of 1,450 school buses will be equipped with GPS by the end of this school year. The district buses 55,000 students each school day, and its fleet tallies more than 15 million miles traveled each year. Even at that size, cellular doesn't currently make as much sense as two-way radio.

"The amount of a monthly or annual (cellular) charge is so much greater then the cost for an (additional) FCC license for that frequency," Mullins says.