Yesterday I was running late for a meeting and saved the file I was working on to a USB drive. Or so I thought. Later, when I went to review my work, I discovered it was gone! All those hours of work – wasted.
Normally we save files to a network storage drive, which is backed up regularly, to avoid these types of hasty mistakes. Those small text and image-based files are usually easy to retrieve, download and organize.
But what about video surveillance files? With one bus, it might not be a big deal to go out to the bus yard and pull the hard drive out of the on-board video recorder to access video footage of an incident. Imagine multiplying the bus count for a larger fleet of 50 or more?
Now imagine forgetting to replace the hard drive in that bus recorder and finding out after a serious accident that the video didn’t record. The cost of missing footage could be huge.
In a small group, any issues or challenges seem small and invisible at first. But as a group grows larger, so do the number of demands. With more challenges comes a higher chance that things can go wrong. Investing in a wireless video management system can prevent those types of issues from happening and ensure bus video is always recording.
We recently chatted with Florida-based school transportation director, David Ogilvie, about the challenges and triumphs that his team faces on a daily basis transporting over 20,000 students per day, twice a day with his fleet of 350 buses.
Here are his top reasons of why his school transportation department chose wireless video downloading for their transportation monitoring needs.
1) Reducing “Man-handling Moments”
David shared the heroic story of how a brave student maneuvered the school bus to safety after the driver collapsed over the wheel. Families, law enforcement, and the local community were expecting to see dramatic video footage of the incident. Sadly, it turned out that a technician had incorrectly replaced the hard drive on that specific bus recorder, and the event was not recorded.
With a wireless video downloading workflow, this would have reduced the number of times needed for a person to physically unlock, remove, and replace a hard drive in the recording equipment on each bus.
2) Personalized Driver Training
They say that a “picture says a thousand words” and that everyone has their own learning style. Some of us like to learn through reading, some through listening and some through watching.
One-on-one coaching using video from an actual incident is a great way of changing risky driving habits.
Wireless video downloading reduces the time it takes to:
- Point out risky driving habits and retrain drivers
- Gather positive examples of good driving behaviors to share at an in-service training
3) Easier Evidence Retrieval
For any incident, it can take a lot of time to gather testimony from all sides.
David shared that there was a sharp reduction in incidents claimed by parents, students, and staff as he was able to save time in retrieving necessary video evidence quickly through wireless download.
In addition, their school district works collectively with local law enforcement to provide evidence for diverse road safety violations such as vehicles running red lights or texting while driving.
Talk with your local representative to see how a Wireless Video Downloading can save time for your school district.
Thank you to David Ogilvie of Collier School District for sharing your stories with us.
