As we see daily around us and experience as parents, arranging transportation for kids to school is a very challenging task, more so when schools do not have viable alternatives and top of that lack of safety guidelines to follow both by school authorities as well as hired transportation. The solution to that is to overhaul the school transportation system.
Further, there are no strict implementations of Rules & Guidelines set by government authorities, though there were some steps taken by the Supreme Court to monitor these School Buses after the matter was raised to the honorable court but as mentioned they are not that strictly implemented enough as we hear reports of misshapes in news every now and then. In India, schools and other educational institutions use private vans as well for transportation of Students other than authorized buses. These vans, including auto-rickshaws, are often overburdened, flout traffic rules, and are crowded beyond capacity. Approximately, two-thirds of parents feel Indian roads are unsafe for their kids and do not want to leave their kids unsupervised on roads while dropping and picking up their kids from school. As a result, less than 40% of parents opt for School Transportation and 60% use private modes of transport adding to traffic on the road and further, increasing the pollution level.
In the recently held conference on ‘Formulation of Draft Policy for the Safety of Transporting School Children’ in April 2019; the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Joint Secretary Abhay Damle said that approximately 7% (10,000 approx.) of deaths on road in India are of children below 18 years every year based on the data collected over past few years. However, the absence of specific data on road accidents and deaths of school children is preventing the government from formulating a policy on school transport.
The easiest and most viable solution in the absence of stringent rules, at the community level, is for these educational institutes to opt for robust GPS-enabled School Transportation Solutions that address these traffic concerns by providing:
- Overhaul the school transportation system for ensuring Real-time visibility of School Buses thus enabling School authorities and parents to monitor the on-road activity of the vehicles and drivers.
- Increased safety of Students.
- Parents and School Authorities can have peace of mind in case of delays through real-time notifications via. App or SMS.
- These digitized solutions will discourage drivers to violate traffic rules.
- Easy and efficient route & staff allocation encouraging better school fleet management and utilization of resources.
- Curb pollution since, with safer School Buses; parents will be encouraged to opt for School Buses leading to lower pollution levels.
- Digitized and paperless reports will also, decrease carbon footprint and overhaul the school transportation system.
Author:
Pratibha Singh