GreyHawk was chosen to supply AVL/MDC units for the St. Louis school district’s 126 buses, the first installations of potentially supplying a large quantity of MDC units nationwide.  Using the CPU of the CEHawk® units used in the paratransit MDC systems, but without a touch screen, this unit is used to control operating costs.  It supplies odometer readings to determine if reasonable or excessive miles have been driven.  When the driver starts the engine at the beginning of a shift the route assigned to that driver/vehicle is transmitted to the AVL/MDC unit on board that includes the Latitude/Longitude for each stop along with the sequence number for each stop.  The AVL/MDC unit uses its GPS “Geofence” detection capability to identify each stop to determine if the driver has deviated from the scheduled sequence of the route.  The built-in accelerometer detects excessive G-forces to indicate “hard braking” events and accidents.  The J1708 interface to the engine’s Electronic Control Module (ECM) allows the unit to capture odometer, engine telemetry data, and detect faults such as engine overheating, low alternator output, etc.   The pickup and drop off route data is transmitted in real time to the GreyHawk Gateway Server that handles all the transmissions to and from the AVL/MDC units in the vehicles.  The Gateway is currently interfaced to the NaviTrans Navigator system which posts it to a SQL Server database and produces the needed reports.  Routes are generated by the Edulog system and are passed to the NaviTrans Navigator system via the interface.  Future enhancements include the ability to monitor student’s ridership for added security.  Biometrics (fingerprint and facial recognition ) technology, proximity cards, or RFID tags are methods under consideration. 

Bus Route System Overview