Following Whittier District Tragedy on School Bus, Antelope Valley Schools Transportation Agency Testing New Safety Solution for Special-Needs Students

LANCASTER, Calif., Sept. 22, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- It has been one week since the terrible student death incident at a local California school district. There is now leading edge technology to prevent this and other kinds of incidents in school transportation. Antelope Valley Schools Transportation Agency, JPA is conducting a pilot program in the implementation a newly developed safety and security solution on their special needs buses. Students will biometrically (Iris) scan identity as they board and exit the school bus. The IRITRANS system will notify the driver visibly and audibly if the child is about to get on or off at the wrong bus stop. When the bus reaches the end of its daily route, the driver simply ends the route on the IRITRANS mobile device and if all students have not exited the bus, the device will notify the driver both visually and audibly to recheck the bus.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150921/268842
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The system continually communicates with the district office, giving officials real-time specific information about who is on the bus and location. There are many additional features included in IRITRANS for student transportation safety and security including immediate real-time text message notification to parents when their child either boards or exits the bus plus time stamped.

"Lost or sleeping kids. It happens every year in most school districts nationally only we rarely hear about it. Kids left sleeping on a bus is at epidemic proportions nationally," says John DeVries, president of IRITRAK Corporation, developer of IRITRANS.

The IRITRANS iris biometric process is completely non-intrusive and has absolutely no identity security risks in the complete processes. The iris image data is not stored, DeVries says. The data is converted into a series of numbers that makes it impossible to be used for re-creating someone's identity.

Morris Fuselier III, AVSTA, CEO states that student safety and security is their #1 priority and continuously looks to be a leader in school transportation safety.  The agency is specifically focused on its special needs bus fleet compared to the general student fleet since it is the most difficult to address in the form of its required application. It requires hardware mobility from all points of the bus for loading or unloading. Mr. Fuselier also states that there are many other potential emergencies that can happen during student transportation which the IRITRANS system eliminates. First and foremost, the implementation process requires a series of scheduled parent meetings in the event parents have concerns about the biometric process. Parents have the ability to opt-out if for some reason they want to decline this additional safety and security for their children.

School bus emergencies go way back, 39-years ago on July 15, 1976; kidnappers abducted 26 children, ages 5 to 14, and their school bus driver in Chowchilla, Madera County, California. If such a thing would happen today, IRITRANS would immediately notify authorities real-time where the bus is located and the specific students onboard it.

Media Contact:
John DeVries
888-643-0186
760-702-5426
www.iritrans.com

SOURCE Antelope Valley Schools Transportation Agency