Magnasoft, a Bangalore based GIS company founded in 2000, has launched, Northstar, a tracking service which can be installed in school buses for administrators and parents to monitor the safety of the children. Parents can track their children via text, where they get messages telling them the estimated time of arrival of the bus at the designated stop. The main features of the service are: - Web-based tracking, monitoring, alerting and reporting - A school bus black box which tells the administrator if there are tampering attempts - A manned "Command Center" that monitors school buses and children during schools hours - Instant alerts of times of arrival, delays, accidents, breakdowns over 5-second SMSs - Automatic voice call alerts of times of arrival - Live video of the inside of school buses to monitor children and drivers - Automatic attendance RFID swipe check both inside the bus and at school gates - Integration with third party school management systems Northstar has also launched a mobile application on the Android platform so that parents can see exactly where their children are, upto an accuracy of around 10 metres. The parent can see the child's bus location and the estimated time of arrival to an accuracy of a few minutes. The main features of the application are: Simple login using number Permission based access to child's bus location and estimated time of arrival Map view showing street level detail, if available If the user doesn't have an Android application, bus number and estimated time of arrival are sent as text alerts…
