The number of crimes committed against school children has risen every year, causing anxiety and raising stress levels for parents. Almost every day there is an incident of child abuse in India. While the child may be safe at school, most incidents occur during the commute in the school bus. Schools have responded by installing CCTVs in school buses, and by deploying female bus attendants. Going a step further, some have adopted cutting-edge technology like that offered by the Bengaluru-based Magnasoft. The company which is funded by the Café Coffee Day Group, offers a comprehensive and integrated school bus tracking and monitoring system that ensures children’s safety while they travel to school and back. This in-transit safety platform leverages Geo-technology to provide an end-to-end school bus tracking and child monitoring solution.
It monitors not just children but also the drivers. And it offers a lot more than CCTV video feeds. Not surprisingly, its popularity is rising quickly – since its launch four years ago, 468 Indian schools have adopted it.
Northstar is the brainchild of entrepreneurs Bobbie H. Kalra and Shyam Ramamurthy, who aspired to build a world-class product using their core strength – GIS technology. Shyam and Bobbie kick started their journey with Northstar in the year 2011.
Speaking to Digital Creed, Shyam Ramamurthy, CPO and CTO, Magnasoft said the idea of Northstar was born because child safety was a big concern for both the co-founders, as both are parents.
“School and home are safe havens, but what happens when the child is commuting?” asks Ramamurthy. “There were some point solutions at that time but nothing was sophisticated – where technology could be used as an agent for culture and change.”
The product is now in its third version and Magnasoft claims Northstar has impacted half a million parents and a quarter of a million students.
Northstar has three components: the ability to know where the child is; tracking and insights.
Northstar integrates GPS, RFID and Video surveillance technology. The product also provides school bus video surveillance, student attendance and driver analysis coupled with a cloud-enabled software platform.
The solution has two components: The Northstar Web application for schools (hosted on the cloud) and the Northstar parent app, to check the location of the bus through a Mobile App.
Pricing has been kept very nominal. The school spends a one-time cost between Rs 15,000 – 20,000 per bus for the IoT platform in the bus. And parents pay a monthly subscription fee of Rs 100 – 150 that is integrated into the school bus charges.
There are some new and useful features added to the third version.
One new feature is the Driver Merit System. Magnasoft claims it is the only platform that offers driver training and driver merit in order to incentivize good driving.
The system tracks the driver behavior, speed, time, routes and other parameters. And based on all these parameters, the driver is given ratings. The school can then reward the driver with the best ratings every month. And schools can offer drivers cash incentives. So this is motivation for drivers to improve their driving. And there is healthy competition among drivers to perform better.
“We created a model of incentives and disincentives to encourage the right kind of behaviours among drivers,” said Ramamurthy.
In case of unscheduled stops, route deviation or over-speeding, an instant alert is sent to the school administration.
Another useful feature is the Web dashboard.
School administrators have their plates full, especially during the examinations and there is no time to sit and watch lengthy videos from CCTV cameras installed in buses. So Magnasoft has built the file storage system in such a way that the videos are organized and segmented by day, date, route and trip. This will help a teacher or parent to quickly locate a particular video for a particular route and trip on a particular day via the Web dashboard.
“All the analytics and insights are provided by the Northstar cloud server,” informed Ramamurthy.
And some of the other new features are:
School Bus Monitoring: Northstar’s School Bus Monitoring system provides real-time tracking of the school’s buses. School administrators have access to a futuristic web-based Dashboard to track the buses, receive caution alerts, view driver safety ratings and more. Parents have access to a Mobile App to track the location of the school bus, receive notifications on bus arrival times, child location and more.
School Bus Video Surveillance: The Intelligent Video Surveillance system is a fully integrated digital video recording and mobile surveillance system, with tamper-proof devices to ensure always functional cameras. Authorized school personnel have access to a secured interface where they can stream live video footage or retrieve archived videos on demand.
Student Attendance Management: The Attendance Management system tracks each child’s presence and location within the school. This system extends to school buses to ensure that children board their respective buses and are never accidentally left behind.
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