To improve student safety and road safety, the City’s Department of Administrative Services will now have the Intelligent Speed Assist system on school buses.
This was announced this Tuesday by the Commissioner of the Department of City Administrative Services (DCAS) of the City of New York (DCAS), Dawn M. Pinnock, and the Chancellor of the New York City Public Schools (NYCPS). ), David C. Banks, who reported on the country’s first “School Bus Safe Fleet Transition Plan,” developed in coordination with the Volpe Center of the US Department of Transportation (DOT).
The plan presents key initiatives to keep the city’s students safe by improving road safety and this also includes additional training for bus drivers and reporting of safety risks. There will also be the piloting of new security cameras and pedestrian alerts on buses, and the introduction of school buses into the successful DCAS system, School Bus Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA). to limit speeding, making New York City the first city in the country to use ISA technology on its school buses.
DCAS is expanding its nationally leading ISA initiative to 300 urban fleet vehicles, with 50 school buses among those 300 vehicles. On December 19, 2023, Mayor Adams announced that the city had received a federal grant from DOT to expand the ISA program to 2,000 vehicles in the city’s fleet.
“As New York City continues to use innovative technology to make our city smarter and safer, putting these tools to work for our students is a no-brainer,” said Mayor Eric Adams.
Since the ISA pilot scheme was launched on approximately 50 city vehicles in August 2022, hard braking events, often an indicator of unsafe driving, have decreased by 33%. In particular, DCAS found that thanks to ISA, at least in part, fleet operators were traveling within the parameters of the speed limit 99 percent of the time.
The ISA program prevents a vehicle from accelerating further once it reaches the speed limit and adapts through live telematics monitoring to the local speed limit where the vehicle is operating. This technology will be added to 50 school buses that transport public school students to school each day to ensure operators comply with local speed limits and protect all road users.
“The expanded school bus safety pilot plan is an example of how federal and local governments are collaborating and using every tool at our disposal to keep our streets safe,” First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright said of the new measure.
“This plan represents a holistic approach to keeping our children safe on their way to school and a pioneering new use of speed trap technology. “We are proud to support these efforts with the implementation of citywide street redesigns, which have been shown to dramatically reduce deaths and serious injuries,” said New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodríguez.
Strategies to be adopted
Audible Alerts for Turning: DCAS will begin testing audible turn alerts for pedestrians and other vulnerable road users. According to the plan, about 28 percent of fatal collisions involving school-age pedestrians and school buses occur when the vehicle was turning.
Telematic reports: Modeled after the city’s existing telematics program, DCAS will expand the use of telematics reporting, including real-time alerts, speed and collision alert monitoring, and monthly safety scorecards to track the risk of each school bus in all school bus companies serving New York.
Moderate blind spots: In partnership with Together for Safer Roads, NYCPS and NYCBUS, DCAS will test surround safety cameras, in-cab driver alerts such as pedestrian collision warning systems, and backup sensors on ten school buses.
Mandatory driver safety training: School bus operators will be required to participate in defensive driver and urban safety training. This will mirror the training currently offered by DCAS for all urban fleet operators. The training will review Vision Zero, telematics tracking, best practices and urban driving similar to the urban fleet initiative.
School buses of the future: DCAS will partner with the NYCPS Office of Pupil Transportation, school bus companies, and school bus manufacturers to develop updated specifications for this type of transportation.
In addition to the Safe Fleet Transition Plan, DCAS has taken serious security measures to fulfill the promise of Vision Zero. Other measures include the city’s first CRASH fleet management system, the nation’s largest deployment of live vehicle tracking devices managed through the real-time fleet tracking office, the nation’s leading security guards for trucks, banning the use of hands-free phones by fleet operators and providing safety training to more than 90,000 city employees.
2024-01-16 18:57:36
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