First Student to Deliver Enhanced
Security for National Fleet with
State-of-the-Art System

CINCINNATI (Feb. 15, 2007) - It's been almost a year since a gunman commandeered a Los Angeles Unified School District bus as it left the yard on its way to begin morning service. The school bus was contractor-operated by First Student.

Since that time First Student has been working hard to implement many new security improvements.

Starting next school year, expect all First Student school buses across the nation to be equipped with state-of-art security systems poised to eliminate such incidents from ever happening again. The company's Web site says the current school bus fleet is approximately 22,000 and is responsible for carrying 2 million students to and from school each day.

Gary Catapano, First Student's vice president of safety, said he expects the company to complete by July 31 installation of a comprehensive security system that ties together child check software and a vehicle intrusion system.

"We have made a major move today towards setting the standard in the industry for school bus security and improved passenger safety." Catapano told School Transportation News . "We will be installing intrusion alarm systems in all our vehicles, along with a new generation of the Child Check-Mate system's sleeping child alarm . basically there's some pretty high-tech things we've put into this vehicle."

According to Catapano, once a First Student driver completes the modified child-check procedure, the system arms and essentially locks down the bus. At that point, only authorized personnel can access or operate the vehicle.

"It affects the security of our employees and the security of our passengers," Catapano added. "Nobody had thought of this idea before. There's still more for us to do, but we are excited about the safety and security benefits delivered to our customers thanks to this advanced technology."