Mobile County Public Schools reduces speeding by 50% through proactive coaching
By improving safety and efficiency with the Samsara Connected Operations Cloud, MCPS is able to protect their drivers and elevate the student experience.
Meet MCPS
Limited visibility into bus location and driver safety made it difficult to deliver an exceptional student experience.
Mobile County Public Schools (MCPS) is the largest school district in Alabama, overseeing more than 100 schools. With over 700 school buses transporting 25,000 students daily, it was important for them to have visibility into the location of their fleet. Without full visibility, it was challenging for the back office to efficiently respond to parent inquiries about bus delays. Looking to upgrade from their legacy provider, MCPS realized they needed a modern solution that offered real-time GPS tracking.
Safety is also a priority for MCPS. With a massive school transportation program consisting of seven different zones, they needed to adopt a proactive approach to safety to protect both drivers and students. Limited visibility made it challenging to coach drivers and provide real-time feedback. Supervisors were made aware of risky behaviors only when road users reported incidents, making it difficult to take preventative measures against unsafe driving. When incidents did occur, investigation was often inefficient—MCPS relied on student and driver accounts for investigation, and because footage was distributed across multiple regions, it was time-consuming to review footage of specific events.
MCPS sought a technology partner that could take their safety and efficiency to the next level, so they could enhance driver safety, improve routing and dispatch, and elevate the student experience.
MCPS transforms safety and routing operations with real-time visibility.
MCPS gained real-time visibility across their school bus fleet by adopting Samsara, unlocking significant improvements across safety and efficiency. By integrating Samsara’s GPS data with their third-party routing software, RouteFinder, they now have full visibility into each bus’s predetermined route and real-time location. As a result, they have streamlined routing and dispatch and can more quickly respond to parent inquiries.
“If parents have questions about a bus running late, they can contact the school,” said Omar Farid, Program Specialist. "For any incidents reported by parents or students, the combination of Samsara and our routing software helps us easily find out what happened.”
With Samsara’s Video-Based Safety solution, MCPS can now proactively coach drivers on risky behavior such as speeding, harsh braking, and mobile usage. Plus, supervisors can quickly and easily investigate incidents with on-demand video retrieval. “In the past, we had to depend solely on driver and student reports when incidents happened,” said Farid. “With Samsara, we can use the video to see who is at fault, and that helps us investigate a lot better.”
In addition, MCPS is leveraging Samsara to recognize and reward safe driving. During safety meetings, supervisors use Samsara Safety Scores and video footage to highlight positive driving behaviors and showcase drivers for exemplary performance. “Every few months, we use our in-service training as an opportunity to celebrate our drivers,” said Farid. “Samsara helps our drivers feel a lot safer since they know that if there's an incident, it’s easy to prove what went wrong.”
As part of their ongoing commitment to fostering a culture of safety, Samsara Safety Scores have enabled MCPS to motivate and reward drivers. For employees who demonstrate safe driving, MCPS rewards them with gift certificates and other incentives.
A proactive approach to driver coaching reduces speeding by 50%.
MCPS experienced tremendous safety improvements as a result of Samsara. Supervisors are now able to provide drivers with proactive feedback to address risky behaviors in the moments that matter. “If a driver is speeding, we use Samsara to track that and coach our drivers right away,” said Farid. “We can actually investigate the situation and see what's happening now.” As a result of proactive driver coaching, MCPS reduced speeding by 50%.
