Tag: GPS technology

7 Different Ways GPS Tracking Can Be Used to Protect Kids

Posted on by TSB Super Admin

Global positioning system has changed a lot about how we perceive our world. It is being used by a significant number of population for various purposes. Other than using GPS for navigating there are also other uses for it.

GPS enabled devices are easier to find as the technology helps to locate the device using a internet connected cell phone. Thanks to GPS enabled devices you no longer need to worry about losing your valuables.

They can be tracked using a GPS device so that have to worry about losing things like car, mobile phone, etc.

There are countless benefits for using GPS technology. In this blog we will be discussing about the various functionalities GPS which can be used to protect kids.

1. Locating Positions

One of the most important features of GPS is that it can locate the position of a person. For instance a group of children are going for an excursion and one of them gets lost. GPS tracker will help you find one another.

If your child is an adventure enthusiast having a tracker of their own is great as it has many benefits.

If your child is not familiar with the place he is travelling, a GPS tracker will be of assistance and communicate his location all the time.

2. Geo-fencing

A virtual perimeter can be set so that you will receive a notification when you child crosses the perimeter. This is really helpful when they are going out without a guardian’s assistance.

Geofencing determines a boundary which when crossed by the child will send a notification to the parent’s smartphone. It helps parents to know whether child has breached a geo fence they have created.

3. Emergency Road Side Support

In case children has encountered with an accident, they can call pre-programmed emergency numbers on their phones to get help.

When they make a call, medics can easily trace their location and send them help. One of the notable features of GPS is that even if location is not given emergency crew can still be able to track your current location.

This comes handy when the person is not able to switch on the GPS facility.

4. Wrist Watches or Bands

There are GPS devices like watches or wrist bands that can be worn by kids when they go to school or somewhere else. These devices can be charged and used and will help to give the exact location of the kid when they are not at home.

Such wrist bands and watches are used predominantly by small kids who are not grown up enough to use smartphones.

5. Monitor Activities

A GPS tracker makes it easier to track the activities of the child when they are out of home. Parents can derive a lot of data from the location of their child.

The places they go, the people they meet, the time they spend at each place and such data will give a lot about the activities of their child. GPS makes it easier for the parents to monitor the activities of children when they go outside the house.

6. Locating the Child

There are instances when the child goes missing or lost. During these difficult times GPS can be of assistance to track the missing child.

Children can be lured by criminals by showing them toys or offering them candy. By embedding a GPS tracker in their wrist band or watch you can immediately track them and recover them from criminal hands.

7. Stay Connected

There are light weight devices which enable parents to get connected to their child throughout the day. These are ideal for kids who start a new routine like attending schools or going out without their parents accompanying them.

Let’s Wrap It Up

When it comes to children’s safety parents don’t compromise on anything. Latest technologies can be used to monitor the daily activities of the child and thus ensure that they are safe when they are outside home.

Using GPS is now common and by making use of this technology the safety of kids is ensured. There are chances that kids might encounter incidents that they can’t handle themselves and this is where the use of GPS technology comes handy.

6 Ways Technology has Changed Student Transportation

Posted on by TSB Super Admin

 

Technology advances have greatly affected our lives and the way we work. With the help of technological innovation, we are able to communicate more, quicker and better than ever before. Many employers are reaping several benefits offered by technology.

School transportation has been influenced by technological advancements to a large extent. Today, most of your cars and buses are having Wi-Fi, satellite radio and a host of integrations. Numerous technologies used in cars are now implemented on school buses.

Must Read: 

              Trends in School Transportation Management

Here follows the 6 ways by which technology has changed your child's school transportation:

1. It's Easier to Track Students

As a parent, you may never stop worrying about the safety of your children. With the introduction of student tracking system, you are able to enjoy better safety for your children. You get to know whenever a student exits or enters the school bus, as they are tracked using ID cards. 

When a child's ID is paired with GPS technology and RFID technology, you can better monitor his or her location in real-time. You can also get in touch with teachers and can have a good rapport with each other.

In addition to this, you will be able to track details about pending fee payments and thus get a notification regarding it through your app. Also using your id, you can change your child's pickup point whenever necessary.

2. Students' Safety is Doubled 

With the installation of security cameras and integrating it with your smart phone applications, you can keep your children safe and provide a sense of security. These tools not only provide ease to the mind, but also provide you valuable data to produce reports. 

3. Effective Planning of School Transportation 

Earlier, route planning of school transportation used to be an arduous and frustrating. But, with the advancement of technology, you can optimize your school bus routes easily. By automating, you can create routes that save time as well as fuel. 

Using GPS technology, you can figure out the shortest, safest and most efficient route for your school bus. Thus, you can reduce road hazards that may otherwise put your child at risk. 

Every details regarding trips will be updated in the app including students in bus, those who are absent or on leave. Thus, the entire student statistics in the school bus can be taken using technology.

4. Emergency Management

It is difficult to manage school transportation during emergency situations such as highjacking, accidents or natural calamity. Earlier, during such situations, management was unable to find the real-time location of the bus. Use of GPS tracking system will make it a lot easier and thus take quick action at the time of emergencies.

With the help of GPS technology, school authorities will be able to know about the accident and its location instantly. Hence you can take necessary action to handle the situation.    

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5. Helps to Take Bus Attendance Easily

Driver console app helps the driver to take school bus attendance easily. Whenever students enter or exit a school bus, their details will be announced via the audio facility as well. 

The introduction of latest manifest feature help drivers to get school bus passenger details of a particular trip instantly. It will produce exact passenger detail of the day, neglect leave applied student details for the day, and all pickup point details for the day. 

If one student applied leave and his pickup point is 3 km inside pickup point, then the driver can skip the pickup point because it will not appear in that day's stop list. This is particularly helpful to drivers working with multiple trips or routes. The manifest feature also includes a route diagram which helps you to identify the pickup location. Hence, as a driver, you are not required to remember every student and their pickup points.

 6. Effective Management of School Transportation   

Using the same technology you use to track students, employees can also be managed efficiently. Transportation officials can monitor routes and detect unauthorized stops, which may affect fuel costs of school transportation.

Today life has become simpler and easier with the help of technology. It has completely revolutionized school transportation. 

As most of us follow the 9 to 6 work culture, it will be difficult for you to check out the safety of your child's school transportation. These smart school apps will help you to solve this issue. It would be handy for you to monitor your child's location in real-time through smart phones, which are constant companions for most of us.

The Amazing Evolutional Story of GPS Tracking

Posted on by TSB Super Admin

To figure out their position on earth and navigate, people once depended on different ways that are quite unimaginable in this digital era. It must be astonishing for today’s generation to imagine that mariners relied on methods ranging from angular measurements to positioning of celestial bodies for calculating their location. Radionavigation was the first ever modern technique used in order to calculate the exact location.

GPS was initially prepared for military purpose, and then its service was extended to various fields. GPS has proved itself to be one among the smartest inventions ever made. Now GPS has found its way to even school buses for better service and safety.

The extent to which it is provides service to customers is indeed appreciable.

Read on through the remarkable evolution of GPS:

1957: SPUTNIK, the first man-made satellite was launched. William Guier and George Waeiffenbach, American Physicist monitored the emission of radio transmissions from Sputnik with the help of which they could locate its orbit and location.

1959: The first satellite navigation system was built by Navy, which was named TRANSIT. It was built in order to obtain the exact location of submarines. The system was introduced with six satellites which eventually grew to ten. The subs had to wait for hours to receive signals from satellites. The model paved way for the true GPS with continuous signalling from satellites in space.

1960: TRANSITwas successfully tested

1963: The Aerospace Corporation completed a study for the military that proposed a system of space satellites which sends signals continuously to receivers on the ground and could locate vehicles moving rapidly across the earth’s surface or in the air. The study laid out the GPS concept for the first time. Receivers in vehicles on the ground would derive a precise set of location coordinates by measuring the transmission times of radio signals from satellites.

1974: After having worked on GPS for past 11 years, the branches of military launched the first satellite called NAVSTAR.

1978-1985: In order to test the NAVSTAR System, military launched 11 more test satellites in to space, which was called “the GPS system”. To measure the transmission time, the satellites carried atomic clocks with them. Sensor design to detect the launch or detonation of nuclear devices was carried by some of the satellites starting from 1850.

1983: Korean Airflight 007 was shot down by Russians after it wandered in the Soviet airspace over the Kamchatka Peninsula. All 269 passengers and crew members were killed. In order to avoid similar situations in future, President Reagan ordered that all civilian commercials aircrafts must be equipped with GPS system. He believed that GPS could help in navigation and improve air safety to a great extent.

1985: Contracts for “airborne, shipboard and man-pack (portable)” GPS receivers were given to private companies by Government.

1989: The fully operational GPS satellite was launched by the Air Force after testing for years. After the Challenger disaster in 1986, the plan to launch the satellite on the Space Shuttle was changed. It was used in a Delta II rocket instead.

1990: Defence Department deliberately decreased the accuracy of the GPS system fearing that military adversaries might use GPS system for their advantage.

1994: With an eye on the future, FAA and Bill Clinton granted the worldwide airline industry to continue using the GPS system for free.

2000: The purposeful degradation of GPS which was implemented before the first Gulf War by the Defence Department was stopped. Overnight, GPS became ten times more accurate and powerful. Industries like fishing to forestry to freight management began to use it.

2001: Private companies began to introduce out personal GPS products as the GPS receiver technology got smaller and cheaper. In-car navigation devices from Tom Tom and Garvin were introduced.

2004: A new technology was introduced known as “assisted GPS”, which has been tested and developed. The new eminent technology allows phones to use cellular signal in combination with GPS signal in order to locate the user to within feet of their actual location.

2005: “Block II”, first new generation of GPS satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral. Signals were transmitted by the new breed on a second, dedicated civilian channel.

2009: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report warning that the $5.8 billion effort to upgrade the GPS satellites was so fraught with technical problems, cost overruns, and delays that some of the satellites could begin to fail in 2010.

2010-2011: Two new GPS satellites was launched by Air Force,  one in 2010 and one in 2011 which are meant to keep the constellation operable, until the next generation “Block III” satellites get launched in 2014. An additional civilian GPS signal as well as enhanced performance compared to the GPS service is expected from new Block III satellites.

2012:Air Force manages a constellation of 31 operational GPS satellites, plus three decommissioned satellites that can be reactivated if needed, at present. The constellation ensures the availability of at least 24 GPS satellites, 95% of the time. The next addition to the constellation, the GPS IIF-3 satellite will be launched on October 4 by the Air Force in to the space.

How Does GPS Vehicle Tracking Systems Work?

Posted on by TSB Super Admin

GPS were initially used for military purposes by the US Department of Defense. But nowadays its commercialization has opened up a new window of opportunities in the field of safety and security. Everyone with a hand held mobile device can be powered with a GPS tracking app. This has made it possible to track assets on the move. Together with an embedded RFID card (with the asset), ensuring safety and security has become easier and economical. It is this cost effectiveness and the ease of use that has made GPS tracking systems widely accepted.

What is GPS?

Before understanding how a GPS tracking system works, let’s find out what is GPS. GPS or Global positioning systems is a satellite based technology that helps to track precise location of vehicles, person or other assets and also to provide data at regular intervals. A GPS tracking system can collect data in the asset’s environment and relay the same to a remote server, where the data can be further analyzed. GPS coupled with an RFID tag can be very useful. An RFID uses radio frequency of short range to relay data.

Now, let’s see how it works.

            As mentioned before, GPS is a satellite based technology which uses a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) network. It uses a microwave signal which is sent to the GPS device. It gives provision for both real-time and historical data recording. This is made possible by the 27 GPS satellites orbiting the earth, in a time span of 12 hours. Of these 27 satellites 24 are currently operational and the rest 3 are reserved for when the others fail.

The device carrying a GPS system comprises of a GPS module which receives the signals and is also responsible for calculating the co-ordinates. Based on function, GPS trackers can be of three types – Data logger, Data pusher or Data puller.

Data logger: It is basically used to log the position of a device at regular intervals. It uses an internal memory to store data.  It also comes with a memory card slot or internal flash memory and USB ports. The data from the device can only be moved to a computer for further analysis once data recording is complete as it can only be used for logging purposes.

Data Pusher:The GPS system which schools and fleet companies use these days belongs to the category of data pushers. Besides this, it can also be used for asset tracking and personal tracking. A data pusher records data like speed, altitude etc. and pushes them to a server where the further analysis of these data can be done.

When used for tracking school buses, text messages are sent to a mobile phone that has a GPS tracking app installed, in the event of school bus arrival or the student boarding the bus, via SMS or GPRS. It can also transmit location and telemetry input data or when an event takes place like a door open/close or geo-fence border crossing or engine ON/OFF.

Data puller: In this a remote system sends an SMS to get information from a GPS device. It is similar to a data pusher but the difference is that the data from the GPS system is sent only when it is requested by the remote server. It requires internet and GPSD only occasionally. These systems are used in situations where a constant source of energy is unavailable.

Why use GPS?

  • Not only does it allow data recording and transmission, but it does this in real-time. It is highly accurate and gives a precise location of your assets.
  • Buses follow pre-defined optimized routes set by school authorities, which reduces fuel consumption and also travel time. Hence, it is becoming more popular with schools and fleet companies.
  • It has helped to reduce pollution since the buses take the shortest routes possible and are well maintained.
  • Helps to monitor the school bus driver’s driving pattern.

RFID is another technology, which along with GPS improves asset or personal tracking. The radio frequency it sends out can be used to transmit information using the GPS system. Student ID cards using RFID’s embedded on them can be used while entering or exiting buses. The information thus generated can be sent to parents via a GPS connection therefore informing the parents whether the student has boarded the bus or not.

Parents Happy With the Installation of GPS in School Buses

Posted on by TSB Super Admin

Parents won’t always be free to take their child to school and take them back to home. Therefore, they have to depend on school buses to send their children to school. Almost all the schools now provide this transportation facility; either bus or some other vehicles. But all parents are concerned with the safety of their children. How can you ensure the safety of your child in their way to school? Global Positioning System (GPS) will help you to ensure the security.

Soon, the Government will make it mandatory for all school managements to install global positioning system (GPS) in school transport vehicles and parents are quite happy with this decision. Many schools already have GPS systems with tracking and monitoring system with equal involvement of parents and management.

With the increase in number of assault cases against children in school hours, parents are much worried about their safety. With the installation of GPS tracking system in the school buses, parents and school authorities can be sure of the travel route of the students and they will be informed in case any untoward incident takes place.

Advantages of GPS Tracking System

• Real- time information
Undoubtedly, one of the most advantageous features of GPS Tracking System is real-time information that one received about the location of the school bus. It helps you to know where the buses are, monitor pick up and drop off. You will be informed if any bus goes in a wrong route or if there is any unscheduled stop or delay.

• Student safety
Get notified if a student gets into a wrong bus or steps out at a wrong station. Even if the student misses his/her station, the parent will be informed. The exact location of the child can be identified with RFID tags attached to the devices.

• Monitoring the speed, managing the route and scheduling
If the vehicle is moving at a high speed, you will be informed and you can warn the school authorities to control it to avoid accidents. The authority can rely upon RFID school management software. The software can do routing and scheduling automatically. In that way, time and energy needed for rescheduling and re-routing can be saved.

• A solid record
It is possible for the school authorities to record all the activities and route of the school bus using the GPS tracking system.

What is there to worry?

The number of children abducted on their way to school and to home is increasing rapidly. Majority of the kidnapped children were found dead or had been missing. This is a dangerous situation. You cannot always have your children by your side. So finding a reliable solution to this is a necessity.
Edsys’ School bus Tracking System is a reliable solution to tackle this problem effectively. This will make parents really happy because it is so easy to use and syncs with the Parent Portal.

Once installed in your smart device having internet connection Parent Portal gives the following information:

• The travel history of their child at any given time
• A confirmation whether their children has reached school or home
• Monitor speed of school bus
• Time duration at each stop
• The reasons of delay such as break down, traffic jams, natural hazards etc.

Notifications can be enabled as per needs. For example, few minutes before the bus reaches in the morning, when the student boards the bus, when the student misses the bus or when the student reaches home etc.
The installation of GPS tracking systems with RFID software will surely reduce the number of crimes and attacks against students. Even if a child is abducted, it makes it easy for the authority to find the missing child with minimum time. Since the safety of the child is the major concern, the installation of a GPS tracker will make the parents really happy.