School District of Manatee County unveils new ID scanners for buses

Do you know where your children are?

If they are riding a School District of Manatee County bus in the near future, you will.

By early in 2020, every district bus, 230 in all, will be equipped with a TripSpark identification scanner if all goes well with a trial that begins in August and runs for a semester.

Won Oh, the assistant director of transportation for the district, met with the media July 3 at the Matzke Support Center in Bradenton to introduce the program.

"This is a pilot program that will track the students and let us know where they got on the bus, and where they got off," Oh said. "It's going to help us when parents call and ask if they students are on the busses, or whether they got off."

Students will be given an identification card they will scan when they board the bus. The scanner will be at the top of the steps as they get on. If they scan their card and they shouldn't be on the bus, it will say "wrong bus." When they get off the bus, they will scan their card again.

The district will test the system with 50 buses and three schools starting in August and running for a semester. The three schools have yet to be chosen, but Oh said it will be one elementary school, one middle school and one high school.

Oh said minimal information will be on the cards for security purposes in case the students lose them.

Each unit costs $286 (if purchased separately) and the district already has purchased scanners for all its buses. The initial expense for the program is $56,500 and the district will pay $13,800 per year for a service contract.

"We are just adding another layer (of security)," Oh said. "Technology always is advancing and we wanted to stay ahead of the game. It's just a way of providing more accurate data."

The district expects a lot of issues at first, Oh said, as the kinks are worked out. 

He was asked what happens when a student shows up at the bus without a card.

"It is something we will have to work out," he said. "It's not like we are going to deny them a ride."

The district understands there could be a delay in arrival times as the drivers and students get used to the knew system, but in the long term the hope is that pick--up and drop-off times will be reduced.