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This document outlines and provides a rationale for Child Check-Mate System Inc.'s recommendations regarding specifications which govern electronic child reminder devices on vehicles which transport vulnerable sector individuals (e.g. children, elderly, disabled passengers).
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Electronic Child Reminder Devices: Recommendations For School Bus Specifications
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Electronic Child Reminder Devices: Recommendations For School Bus Specifications Primary Reason for Recommendations Over the past several years, several states, counties, cities and school boards have mandated electronic child reminder devices. While the implementation of these devices helps assure passenger safety, the growing number of specifications has complicated the implementation and operation of those systems; therefore, compromising the effectiveness of those devices. To address this problem, a strong but flexible school bus specification is recommended. Guiding Principles Specification must not favor or limit certain providers of such systems. Specification must allow operators, school districts and other stakeholders to make reasonable amendments to system function. Specification must allow flexibility so that transportation providers have the freedom to implement and improve upon best practices. Recommended School Bus Specification Definitions Activated: The state when the system is functioning and is ready to alarm. Deactivated: The state achieved when the driver walks to the rear of the bus and operates the disarm switch. Post-trip child search: The process when the driver searches the vehicle checking on and underneath each seat for sleeping children prior to leaving the vehicle unattended. Alarm: The state when the audible alarm is activated. School Bus Specification An electrical child reminder system shall be installed to prompt the driver to check for passengers at the end of their route. The system shall be activated using any reasonable method which identifies that passengers are likely to be on board. For example, the system may activate when the eight-way overhead lights are turned on at the first passenger stop; the system may activate itself after certain number of minutes of operation. If the system has been activated, the system must prompt the driver to complete a post-trip child search during which the driver must walk to the rear of the vehicle to ensure no passengers are left behind and to deactivate the system (e.g. push button). The driver must deactivate the system before leaving the vehicle unattended. Failure to do so will result in the system sounding an alarm. Upon deactivation, the system shall confirm deactivation by visible and/or audible notification (e.g. system beeping, blinking lights, etc.). The system shall sound an alarm that is audible from 500 ft. The deactivation switch (e.g. button) shall be installed so that the driver must walk to the rear of the vehicle to reach the switch that deactivates the alarm. Deactivation switches installed in locations that do not require the driver to walk to the back of the vehicle and view all seating areas will not be acceptable. The system shall not have a bypass. The device must be properly maintained in good working order at all times. Rationale for Recommendations There is no single process that is optimal for all transportation providers; therefore, school bus specifications (Specifications) regarding electronic child reminder devices (Devices) must afford flexibility so that transportation providers may choose or design a Device which most effectively improves the safety of their passengers. Flexible Specifications allow transportation providers (1) sufficient leeway to effectively integrate the Device within existing or evolving best practices, and (2) the ability to creatively improve the effectiveness of their Device and related safety procedures. Specifications which allow a reasonable degree of flexibility permit operators to choose a solution which best fits their current, forthcoming and future operational requirements. Fleet size, depot location, pickup and drop-off locations, vehicle type and other factors greatly impact a transportation providers’ safety procedures. During the activation process alone, transportation providers may elect multiple avenues to assure Device activation. For example: Transportation Provider A’s, students are often transported short distances between facilities. Students are loaded and unloaded in areas where traffic is restricted to school vehicles; therefore, the eight-way lights (i.e. loading/unloading lights) are not used. This transportation provider prefers that their systems activate whenever the brake pedal is depressed (which ensures that the system is activated any time the vehicle is put in gear). Transportation Provider B’s depot is located in a rural area; at least 10 minutes from the nearest pickup/drop-off location. Provider B services a mix of regular AM/PM routes (where the eight-way lights are used) and field trips (where the eight-way lights are not used). Provider B prefers that each Device arm automatically after ignition has been powered for more than 10 minutes or immediately when the eight-way lights are activated. Transportation Provider C pre-starts all vehicles each morning to ensure that the vehicles’ climate is temperate for passengers. On extremely cold mornings, the vehicles may be run for several minutes. Once they have reached an appropriate interior and coolant temperature, the vehicles are turned off. When Provider C’s vehicles are loading/unloading, they are often parked in front of the school in a line. As a vehicle leaves the line, all vehicles move up to close the gap. Provider C prefers to activate the Device only when the brake pedal is depressed after the vehicle has been on for more than 5 minutes. For each operator above, the other operators’ activation methods would be suboptimal. Although it may be argued that Transportation Provider A’s method would ensure activation any time the vehicle is moved, it may have an unnecessarily negative impact on other Providers’ processes and procedures. It should be the goal of any Specification to assure that resulting Devices, processes and procedures do not unnecessarily frustrate drivers, technicians and supervisors. Moreover, transportation providers should have the freedom to improve upon best practices. Over the past several years, innovative transportation providers have made significant advancements in the area of electronic child reminder devices. Where specifications are overly rigid, transportation providers struggle to implement creative solutions which increase passenger safety - because a portion of the new solution does not comply with a portion of the specification. For example: Transportation Provider D was concerned that drivers were deactivating their devices too quickly and were therefore not completing an effective child search. To encourage drivers to conduct an effective child search, Provider D adjusted its Devices so that the system could not be deactivated until the vehicle’s engine had been ‘off’ for 90 seconds. Transportation Provider E was concerned that their drivers were not completing their child search until they returned to the depot, rather than as soon as possible (while respecting safety and traffic regulations) following their last drop-off. Provider E connected the Device to its GPS system and was then able to verify that all drivers had not only completed their child search, but had completed it in a timely manner, in the correct location. Transportation Provider F was concerned that, even though their drivers were being reminded by a Device to complete their child search, they may still miss a sleeping child. To safeguard against this possibility, the Provider initiated the development of a system which monitors the interior of the vehicle for movement after-hours. If a child were missed during the child search, when they wake and move about the vehicle, the Device can trigger a variety of outcomes. As a result of creative, ambitious, and dedicated transportation providers, our industry now boasts, Devices which can be customized to meet operators’ specific operational requirements; Devices which can ‘speak’ to drivers and passengers; Devices which can monitor vehicles after hours if a child is missed; and Devices which can trigger a variety of outcomes like real-time SMS or email alerts, video recording and even a vehicle’s climate control system. Many of these advancements (and the examples of Providers D, E and F, above) are inhibited or impossible when regulations are rigid or overly specific. It is abundantly important that specifications afford a degree of flexibility that incubates and encourages the advancement of our industry’s technology and best practices. Specifications for electronic child reminder devices should be adaptable in order to allow transportation providers to implement solutions which most effectively assure the safe and efficient transportation of children. Because transportation providers have diverse operational requirements and constraints, Specifications that accommodate diverse Device configurations are necessary. Moreover, Specifications should allow flexibility so that transportation providers may continue to develop innovative improvements to Devices and best practices. Especially over the past several years, flexibility in Specifications (and, in many areas the non-existence of related Specifications) has allowed Providers the freedom to continually improve upon industry standards.
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