IRVINE, Calif. — Technology solutions provider CalAmp and its subsidiary Synovia Solutions have introduced Bus Guardian, a suite of digital solutions designed to help schools conduct contact tracing and track sanitization practices on their buses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bus Guardian can help schools deliver instant and actionable reporting of school bus ridership for drivers and students based on contact tracing, according to a news release from CalAmp, which is particularly important if a student or driver becomes ill. The suite of solutions also delivers a hygiene verification system to help administrators monitor and report on real-time sanitization efforts.

Bus Guardian includes contact tracing software and hardware products that are created to support schools and families as students return to the classroom.

"We recognize that schools face enormous challenges as they create new plans for students to safely manage the coming school year and that student transportation will play a vital role," said Bill Westerman, vice president of product management for CalAmp. "We're investing significant research and development to forge new technology solutions that can help schools manage these evolving challenges and make the fall return to school safer for all students and families."

The Bus Guardian contact tracing solution is powered by Synovia's student ridership and driver time and attendance products. It allows a school administrator to create instant reports around each student's bus ridership history. The suite of solutions produces instant reports showing who rode a bus during the same time as other students, as well as those who rode the same bus, but at different times. This information can be critical in cases where a bus serves both an elementary school and middle school during different time periods of the same day.

Bus Guardian also tracks, monitors, and reports on drivers and quickly establishes which riders came into contact with a potentially ill driver, which can be a helpful tool for fleets who rely heavily on substitute drivers, especially during the pandemic.The Bus Guardian program relies on an enhanced trip inspection module currently being used by more than 500 school districts, which includes hygiene verification in addition to its regular slate of inspections such as lights, signals, and other roadworthy indicators.

Schools will be able to track in real-time their bus hygiene activities and generate detailed reports that show sanitation efforts across their entire fleets, according to CalAmp.

CalAmp's Synovia Solutions currently delivers GPS-powered fleet intelligence systems for approximately 100,000 buses across more than 750 school districts and student transportation contractors in nearly every state in the U.S.