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Spotsylvania about to start using GPS devices in some of its school buses Date published: 2/1/2005 By BILL FREEHLING Attention, parents: Your local school system may have found an easier way to figure out the speed and location of your child's bus. School-bus tracking devices are on their way to Spotsylvania County, and Stafford County might soon try a similar system. School buses are now equipped with radios that let transportation officials communicate with drivers--who can provide their locations and estimated times of arrival. But a radio isn't foolproof. The volume might be turned down. A driver might not want to take either hand off the wheel to use one. And radios aren't much good if drivers aren't in their buses, for whatever reason. Officials in Stafford and Spotsylvania think they have a solution--Global Positioning System devices that will allow dispatchers to look at a computerized county map and pinpoint the bus's exact location. After testing the system last year, Spotsylvania recently bought 12 GPS transmitters and two receivers from Pennsylvania-based Everyday Wireless LLC. They're supposed to be installed and running by the end of the school year. Stafford's school superintendent put money into her proposed budget for next fiscal year that would fund a GPS test program. The transmitters, which are about the size of a bagel, hook into a bus's electrical system. When the ignition is on, the device transmits radio-wave signals five to 10 times a minute. The receivers pick up signals within a 20-mile radius and beam the data into a computer network. Transportation officials can tell the bus's location, when it stopped and how fast it's going. "I will know exactly when they're starting and stopping," said Sean Lacey, coordinator of automated routing for Spotsylvania's school transportation department. "It's important for us to know where they're at at all times." In Spotsylvania, one receiver will be set up in the southern part of the county, and one in the north to prevent dead spots. Spotsylvania spent about $13,100 on the first 12 units--$3,900 for the receivers, $8,700 for the transmitters and $500 for a Federal Communications Commission license. Superintendent Jerry Hill's proposed budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 asks for 50 more transmitters. The devices are now $825 each, for a cost of $41,250.
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