A pilot project equipping Waterloo Region school buses with cameras to catch other drivers passing stopped buses caught more violations than even the president of the company supplying the cameras expected to see.
For 23 days near the end of the last school year, Force Multiplier Solutions Canada arranged for cameras to be placed on six school buses around the region.
An apparatus containing seven cameras was placed on the side of each of the buses.
By the time the trial was over, the cameras had recorded 97 occasions on which another vehicle had illegally passed a stopped school bus – an average of about 0.7 violations per bus per day.
“We knew it was happening often. We just didn’t realize that it was at that rate,” said Jean Souliere of Force Multiplier Solutions Canada.
Souliere said he expected the per-bus-per-day number to sit somewhere between 0.1 or 0.25. He says a similar project in Mississauga caught 2.5 vehicles blowing passed the average stopped bus on a typical day.
In one local case, Souliere says, the same child ended up in danger twice on the same day – once from a vehicle passing their bus, and once due to a vehicle approaching it from the opposite direction.
The initial pilot program was funded by Souliere’s company.
He says he hopes the results will lead school boards to see value in a wider rollout of the technology, although he sees challenges on that front due to shrinking budgets for busing and lack of the “commercial incentive” driving similar changes in the private sector.
“The technology used to move our things is much more advanced than the technology school bus companies use to move our kids,” he said.
Waterloo Region District School Board staff have recommended installing cameras on buses permanently, but ultimately the decision rests with Student Transportation Services Waterloo Region, which oversees busing in the region.
With reporting by Alexandra Pinto
