Dubai-based Location Solutions, a telematics service provider, has signed distributor partnership agreements with Zonar Systems, an electronic fleet management solutions vendor and Edulog, a school transportation systems provider.

The signing took place during the recently concluded School Transportation Conference and Exhibition 2013 in Dubai, an exclusive event dedicated to the safe and efficient transportation of school students.

The company’s participation fell in line with its efforts to seek out potential business opportunities at the conference while at the same time increase awareness on the key products and solutions that they offer.

Location Solutions showcased Zonar’s Pupil Transportation Solution, Edulog’s student transportation management solutions and its own range of asset tracking solutions during the three-day event.

The participation complements the company's move to reach out to key target markets that include school transport service providers; schools and universities that own and operate their own buses; local government authorities; fleet owners and their respective managers or transport supervisors.

“The UAE is one of our major markets in the GCC region as both its public and private sectors are always eager to adopt new technologies and solutions that can help improve their operations and services,” said Gressy Abdelnour, business development manager, Location Solutions.

“The signing of distributor partnership agreements with Zonar Systems and Edulog proves to be both timely and strategic—showcasing our continued commitment towards promoting safe school transport for our children and also providing a high quality tracking and monitoring system that fleet owners, managers and school administrators can rely on.”

The Zonar Pupil Transportation solution is an asset tracking solution and student identification system that allows users to monitor the location of any school bus in real time using the internet via an interactive user interface.

The solution also allows the bus fleet supervisor to know which students boarded, where they boarded and what time did they get on and get off the bus and to generate various bus attendance reports. In addition, parents can also download an application on their smartphone that enables them to track their child during transport.

When used with Edulog's school bus route planning and scheduling system, fleet managers will have the ability to optimize fleet utilization, resources, and to allocate buses accordingly.

“Zonar has been supplying the US school transportation market with intelligent and proven electronic solutions that assist fleet owners in doing their job at its best,” said Dan Matts, director of Channel Development, Zonar Systems.

“Since child safety is our first priority, we developed the Zpass and Zpass+ to report the child’s boarding info on and out of the bus in real time to both administrators and parents and our patented EVIR (Electronic Vehicle Inspection Report) is used to streamline the vehicle safety check-up both pre and post trip.

We've seen that this region of the world is very much interested in adopting and implementing regulations, procedures, and solutions to help transport children safely, and that's why we decided to be present in this strategic exhibition and to mutually work with Location Solutions in building the market here,” he added.

Jason Corbally, president, Edulog, said: “Edulog is very specific in nature--our routing/scheduling software is designed from the ground up to be utilized by the world’s largest school systems that transport students on school buses.

“Our client base includes more than 1,200 school systems covering key areas like New York City, Miami, Chicago, Toronto, Ottawa and Paris. Our solution is specific to school buses and we stay true to what we know best; to transport children safely, efficiently and on-time.”

“Edulog and Zonar, in tandem, has become the industry standard in the US and Canada. The best operational driven company (Zonar) provides GPS, student tracking, vehicle inspection, engine diagnostics and other data elements coupled with Edulog’s more than 35 years of history in computerized software for routing children effectively has proven to be the Industry’s proven decision,” Corbally added.

“Edulog uses data delivered by Zonar to allow children, parents, schools, and transportation departments to know buses running late/early, deviating from planned path, missed and unscheduled stops and students, along with driver deviation.”

“The UAE's transportation market is mature and is also growing rapidly. However, this growth is accompanied with the demand for more smart solutions that can help cut costs, increase road safety, and also add value to the user,” said Abdelnour.

“Being part of this conference allowed us the opportunity to leverage our wide range of transportation telematics services across various industry verticals, particularly local schools and universities.” – TradeArabia News Service