Georgia College District solves bus issues with GPS monitoring

After countless problems with broadband connectivity on school buses in its district, a Georgia public school system has switched to new technology that offers a more seamless experience for school bus drivers, parents, and students.

One of the state’s largest school districts, Clayton County Public Schools (CCPS) has struggled for years with Wi-Fi outages on the tablets used on its fleet of more than 450 school buses to keep track of routes. Coping with the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the transportation experience as unprecedented bus driver shortages caused delays and patchy broadband connections left parents and students in the dark as to when their scheduled bus would actually arrive, according to CCPS Director of Transportation Denise Hall.

This ongoing problem prompted the school district to look for more effective alternatives and chose a fleet-tracking GPS solution from IoT-powered connected operations company Samsara. The partnership began in July 2021 when CCPS scrapped its old tablets and phased out data service connectivity in favor of new tablets, a 2GB hotspot and GPS location service, Hall said in an interview with Government Technology.


“We often had issues with the tablets we had (which) didn’t store data adequately. An employee walked in and logged into the tablet, they started their route, walked down the street and all the information they entered disappeared,” Hall said, noting the distress had lasted for years before they landed a solution.

Hall said Samsara’s GPS tracking enabled the school district to track its 453 buses and record safety data, including whether a driver hit the brakes or speeded. Instead of parents logging into the county’s Parent Portal app to track the bus with inaccurate information, resulting in the county being inundated with calls about delays in the schedule — as bus drivers work in ranks and elementary school kids, then middle school and high School, but fill in as needed if another driver is driving on a given day – the new Samsara system has turned the old system on its head.

“GPS has given us the ability to provide accurate data that parents can use to track their children in real time right now,” Hall said.

The implementation of the Samsara tool, for which the district was recognized for “Excellence in Performance, Public Sector” at last month’s Samsara 2022 Connected Operations Awards, was “a lifesaver,” according to Hall.

Since adding the Samsara tracking system, CCPS has reduced calls from parents regarding transportation by 50 percent, the release said. Hall said the system offers more than just a bus distance from a pickup or drop-off location.

“It gave us the opportunity to help in different situations where we might have had a driver or student who was in need and we were able to use a GPS to pinpoint where they were,” she said. “It has enabled us to send the emergency response in a timely manner.”

According to the Samsara website, the features that GPS tracking offers include real-time data from sensors, dash cams, third-party 360-degree cameras, and other IoT integrations for a safer and more efficient bus system. Remotely, the system can monitor bus conditions as well as stop paddles, the website says, and log bus activity with updates deployed to a parent portal app.

Giovanni Albanese Jr. is a staff writer for the Center for Digital Education. In his more than 15-year career as a reporter, he has covered business, politics, breaking news and professional football. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Salem State University in Massachusetts.

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