New Survey Reveals Better Tracking Technology and Driver Screening Desired for School Buses Across U.S.

DUBLIN and BOSTON, Oct. 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- There are 25 million students nationwide that begin and end their day with a trip on a school bus¹. In honor of National School Bus Safety Week, which occurs October 17 – 21, 2016, Fleetmatics Group (NYSE: FLTX), a leading global provider of mobile workforce solutions for service-based businesses of all sizes delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS), commissioned KRC Research to conduct a survey to examine U.S. confidence in school bus safety, and identify the top areas for improvement.

The results find that close to three fourths of Americans (71 percent) are confident in the current state of school bus safety.  In fact, nearly 8 in 10 Americans (79 percent) are confident in the timeliness of their school buses, suggesting a high level of trust that parents and students will not be left waiting. 

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, school buses are the safest mode of school transportation as they have to meet more Federal safety standards than any other type of motor vehicle². By comparison, a sampling of Fleetmatics' customer data found school buses are some of the safest commercial vehicles, with less speeding and harsh breaking incidents, than vehicles in other industries, such as social services and medical³.

Based on the survey results, many Americans agree there is room for improvement and want to take steps to more closely monitor school bus driver safety. Specifically, it found that close to half of respondents believe the following should be improved on school buses: more rigorous screening for drivers (55 percent), better tracking technology (45 percent) and more ways for parents and school officials to monitor (44 percent).

"School bus safety is an important issue, and our survey confirmed that a majority of people do have confidence in school bus systems, which is great news," said Kathleen Finato, Chief Marketing Officer for Fleetmatics.  "However, half of respondents said they still want better technology in school buses, such as GPS tracking that can help drivers, parents and school officials gain better insight into the vehicle location and activity."

The survey also found that Americans want to be able to keep track of school buses with their digital devices. When asked which technologies should be integrated into school buses in the future, respondents thought that routing software for buses to find alternative routes (40 percent), GPS tracking allowing parents and school officials to know the exact location of the bus (51 percent), and a downloadable app for tracking (50 percent) were important.

Fleetmatics provides mobile workforce solutions for service-based businesses of all sizes, delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS). The company's solutions help businesses to meet challenges associated with managing local fleets, and improve productivity of mobile workforces, by extracting actionable business intelligence on vehicle and driver behavioral data.

About Fleetmatics Group PLC

Fleetmatics Group PLC (NYSE: FLTX) is a leading global provider of mobile workforce solutions for service-based businesses of all sizes delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS). Our solutions enable businesses to meet the challenges associated with managing local fleets, and improve the productivity of their mobile workforces, by extracting actionable business intelligence from real-time and historical vehicle and driver behavioral data.  Fleetmatics Group's intuitive, cost-effective Web-based solutions provide fleet operators with visibility into vehicle location, fuel usage, speed and mileage, and other insights into their mobile workforce, enabling them to reduce operating and capital costs, as well as increase revenue. An integrated, full-featured mobile workforce management product provides additional efficiencies related to job management by empowering the field worker and speeding the job completion process – quote through payment. As of June 30, 2016, Fleetmatics served approximately 38,000 customers and approximately 757,000 subscribed vehicles worldwide. To learn more about Fleetmatics, visit www.fleetmatics.com.

Media Contact:
Juli Burda
Fleetmatics
[email protected]
847-378-4398

 Footnotes:
¹National Safety Council – Buses are the Safest Mode of Transportation for School Children
http://www.nsc.org/learn/safety-knowledge/Pages/news-and-resources-school-bus-safety-rules.aspx 
²National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration – August 2014 http://www.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/Safety1nNum3ers/august2014/S1N_School_Bus_Issue-August.pdf
³Fleetmatics customer data sample – Oct 1, 2015 - Sept 30, 2016

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SOURCE Fleetmatics Group PLC

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