THE Rural School Bus Programme has received a major technological upgrade with the official opening of an operations centre at the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) Lyndhurst Road depot.

With the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI), the centre has been established as the central location that will track and monitor the location of the 110 buses operating islandwide.

Welcoming the opening of the centre, Minister of Science, Energy, Telecommunications and Transport Daryl Vaz, noted that the initiative underscores the importance of strengthening Jamaica’s public transportation system, and protecting children.

“We understood from the beginning that putting buses on the road was only one part of the solution. The real objective was to build a system that is organised, accountable, and a system that can be monitored and improved over time. That is why today’s opening of the school bus operation centre by Elhydro is so important. This facility is the operational hub of the entire programme of 110 school buses servicing every parish in Jamaica. From here we will have real-time visibility of the bus movements through GPS tracking. Routes will be managed more efficiently and effectively and we’ll use data to inform decisions and continuously improve service delivery,” Vaz said.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, vice-president at Elhydro, Major Paul Brown, noted that the operation of the facility creates a connected network for parents, drivers, and school administrators.

“The school bus operation centre is an enterprise-grade security ecosystem using a school bus management system to leverage innovative technology coupled with cloud-based AI to revolutionise transportation safety of our kids. Analytical information derived from the centre will be used by JUTC to optimise bus schedules, routing, driver behaviour, investigation, bus performance, and even CO2 emission tracking. And that will be per bus, among several other analytics,” Brown explained.

He added that the centre will facilitate any duly authorised official access to situational awareness of all buses, make strategic and proactive decisions based on real-time information, create interoperability between different school regions, and increase response time in the event of any emergency.

“The platform consolidates all data streams, utilising a unified security ecosystem and infrastructure to a mobile bus fleet into a single high-performance interface. All communication between the buses and the centre will be tunnelled through an encrypted VPN security channel. This ensures end-to-end data integrity and protects against unauthorised interception,” he said.

Elhydro CEO, Tanya Morgan, noted that the initiative is a result of a vision brought to life through strong collaboration, with partners including the Ministry of Energy, Telecommunication and Transport, Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information, and the JUTC.

“We understand that for parents and guardians, peace of mind is priceless. Knowing that their children are safe in transit is essential. The operations centre is a direct response to that need,” she said.

The Rural School Bus system, which was launched in September last year, is managed by JUTC and is aimed at providing safe, affordable transportation for students.