COSTA MESA, Calif. , Oct. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Astrata Group today announced that it has been awarded a contract from Academia Management Solutions International, AMSI in Dubai , UAE, to track and monitor buses from its Al Mawakeb Schools & the International School of Arts & Sciences as part of a new student safety program. Approximately 100 school buses have been installed with Astrata's tracking and monitoring system. The interactive solution allows parents to track their children's travel in a designated school bus enabling them to access data via the Internet from home or office PC at any time via a secure and personal password, assigned to each family.
The company also reported that the system may be upgraded with RF-ID reader/tags to monitor boarding students and the location of pupils whilst in school itself.
Astrata's Executive Chairman, Anthony Harrison commented: "This is an interesting new business model as the school has included the tracking system as an added service as part of their annual school fees. As such, some 700 paying parents are actually funding this system -- the benefits of which are many and they go a long way to re-assuring parents of their child's safety and security.
"The Astrata system provides parents with real-time (minute-by-minute) information about the transportation of their children to and from school and the exact time they arrived safely at school or home," Harrison added.
An SMS service can also alert parents in advance of an approaching bus at designated pick-up points so that they can be met safely.
The bus driver's driving performance can also be monitored at all times, in particular driving information such as speeding, harsh-breaking and acceleration can be picked up by the system.
Harrison added: "This new service will undoubtedly enhance the school's profile and show it takes the subject of pupil safety very seriously. We believe it is the first such contract of its kind to be funded in this way and we hope it will lead many other schools and colleges following suit."
