The Joint Committee of the Ministry of Education and Emirates Transport announced the adoption of the installation of the smart system for the safety of students in all school buses, which provide daily transport services for all educational stages in Dubai and the northern regions. It will be installed in 2370 buses to serve 110 thousand students, including 3 smart devices installed in each bus, 7 internal and external surveillance cameras, digital recorders and central control systems. The buses will cover all educational stages in Dubai and the northern regions, as the system aims to eliminate the possibility of human error and prevent cases of forgetting students in school buses.
Efforts
This step comes within the framework of efforts exerted by both parties to enhance the security and safety standards in the school transportation system for our students in accordance with the highest standards and global guidelines applied in this field, which will contribute to reducing school transport accidents and eliminate the possibility of forgetting students on the school bus.
Eng. Abdul Rahman Mohammed Al Hammadi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education for Supervision and Support Services, stressed the Ministry's keenness to provide all safety and security standards in school transport to enhance the safety and protection of students through continuous coordination with Emirates Transport to develop an integrated system to follow students in school buses, with smart and advanced techniques.
He pointed out that the Ministry pays great attention to ensuring the safety of students, both psychologically and physically as a national priority, which is not underestimated, especially in the context of the large number of students who use school buses in geographical areas with wide spread in Dubai and the Northern Emirates.
Al Hammadi referred that the Ministry, in partnership with Emirates Transport, has been keen to update the school transport fleet and develop a set of standards for school buses to ensure that it is properly equipped to meet the needs of the students, increase their operational efficiency and reduce travel time to and from the school., as well as to provide qualified and trained supervisors and trainers for school buses to take care of students during their daily bus journey.
System
When addressing the smart system of student safety in school buses, Al Hammadi explained that the initiative will contribute to providing the necessary technological means to enable the operations centers in the Ministry to follow the school buses and verify their compliance with the regulations and legislation governing the school transport operations. He also added that the Ministry, in cooperation with Emirates Transport, has developed plans to meet any emergency needs may appear at the beginning of the next academic year, especially in relation to fulfilling the needs of new residential areas.
He also praised the joint efforts between the two parties to raise the level of services provided to students through the development and upgrading of operational systems and service indicators in line with the best international practices in this area.
In this context, Al Hammadi stressed the necessity of concerted efforts among all concerned parties in the school transport operations to develop and sustain this system as it represents a civilized front of the state. He confirmed that its success is a national responsibility shared by different sectors in order to achieve the objectives of the State and its aspirations to achieve the happiness and well-being of all members of society.
Al-Hammadi also called on parents to contribute positively to the application of the smart system for the safety of students through spreading the culture of safety and promoting these practices to help reduce the risk of accidents during the school trip.
safety
For his part, Mohammed Abdullah Al-Jarmin, Director General of Emirates Transport, praised the initiative of the Ministry of Education and its permanent efforts to raise safety levels during the students' school trip. He stressed that these efforts translate the trends and interests of the federal government in order to provide a decent life for its sons and daughters in various fields, especially the educational ones.
He states that the Foundation is keen to develop innovative tools and smart programs to establish safety standards in the transport services provided to students, as maintaining their safety is an essential element to build a developed learning environment according to the priorities and guidance of the federal government and wise leadership.
Defense lines
The Director General of Emirates Transport said that the smart system of student safety is working to reinforce the bus with additional defensive lines to provide the highest safety for the transferred students. The system aims to prevent any cases of forgetting students in school buses and to eliminate any impact on human error potential, whether bus driver or supervisor or the student, through three smart and advanced electronic devices, consisting of the student's identification card, which will ensure the implementation of the procedures of boarding the students and get off the bus during the trips from and to the school, and through the card parents will get alerts of the details of the movement of their children on the school trip. The second device is the bus-free verification system, which ensures that the procedures of checking by the drivers at the end of the trip are carried out by pressing the check button at the end of the bus in case of complete absence from the students and issuing an audio alert if the driver does not comply with this procedure. The third smart device is the Motion Detector System, which will automatically monitor any movement inside the bus after it is closed and generate high sound alerts, as well as instructions that help calm the student inside the bus and reassure him that an assistant is coming to get him out immediately.
Plans
Mohammed Al-Jarmin explained that once the installation of the smart system has been adopted, the Emirates Transport has begun to implement the plans to install the devices that make up the system, where the first phase began with the supply of smart devices in preparation for installation on 2345 school buses in the period from August to October of this year, in order to start actual operation of the system with the beginning of November 2017. He explained that the system will cover the buses of all stages of education, and will benefit 110 thousand students in 383 public schools in almost Dubai and the Northern Emirates.
29/06/2017