It's 7:18 AM. 22 buses are out. The transport manager sees all of them.

Yes. Multiple authorities mandate GPS: Motor Vehicles Act 1988, Supreme Court of India directives, MoRTH notifications, state RTO requirements, CBSE Affiliation Bye-Laws. The technical standard is AIS-140 issued by ARAI — ARAI-approved GPS with panic buttons and dual-IP transmission using GPS and NavIC (Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System). For CBSE-affiliated schools, GPS + CCTV + 40 km/h speed governors + trained attendants are all mandatory. States including Maharashtra have additional GRs.

AIS-153 is the bus body construction standard published by ARAI that became mandatory effective September 2025. Covers safety, NVH (Noise Vibration and Harshness), fire protection, ITS integration, certification protocols. Bus body builders must obtain type approval from ARAI, ICAT, or CIRT — type approval certificate is mandatory for vehicle registration. Schools procuring new buses after September 2025 should ensure suppliers provide AIS-153 documentation. SchoolDeck stores AIS-153 certificates alongside each bus's profile.

For children below 12, the number carried shall not exceed 1.5 times the permitted seating capacity — three children counted as two adults. Children 12+ treated as one person each, same as adult capacity. The platform tracks each student's age against the assigned bus and flags routes approaching or breaching the rule. Transport managers rebalance assignments across routes before the school year starts rather than discovering violations during RTO inspection.

Parents see their child's bus moving live on a map in the SchoolDeck parent app. WhatsApp Business API notification when bus is ~10 minutes (or 2 km) from stop, when child taps in via RFID at boarding, when child taps out at school/home. The combination of GPS bus location + RFID boarding logs gives visibility GPS alone cannot — knowing not just where the bus is, but that the child is on it.

CBSE bus safety guidelines cap school bus speed at 40 km/h. Platform monitors live speed from AIS-140 GPS feed against configured threshold. Any breach triggers instant alert to transport manager via SMS and dashboard with GPS-stamped location and timestamp. Drivers accumulate behaviour scorecard tracking speed breaches, harsh braking, idling, route deviations — useful for monthly appraisals, CBSE safety audits, disciplinary documentation. Schools report drivers self-correct within 1-2 weeks.

Yes. Two DPDP Act 2023 provisions apply. Section 7 covers lawful processing — routine transport alerts qualify as legitimate processing schools have lawful basis for, no separate consent needed. Section 9 governs children's personal data — precise location tracking of minors requires verifiable parental consent, captured digitally during admission. Location data encrypted at rest and in transit. Access role-based — only transport manager, principal, and the specific student's parents see that student's location data.

Yes. SchoolDeck supports 500+ GPS device protocols including Concox, Teltonika, ZKTeco, and most Indian AIS-140 certified devices. If your fleet has GPS hardware, onboarding team maps existing device feeds to SchoolDeck dashboard — no replacement. For schools without hardware, Driver Phone Mode turns any Android phone into tracking device via Driver Console app — fleet visible in minutes while AIS-140 certified hardware is procured.

Each student carries an RFID-enabled smart ID card (doubles as school identity card) tapped on a reader at the bus door when boarding/de-boarding. Parents receive instant WhatsApp alert via Business API with timestamp and stop location. RFID catches scenarios GPS alone cannot — wrong-stop drops, missed-deboard alerts, missed-board nudges. RFID reader hardware is one-time per bus and integrates with the same ID card students use for classroom attendance.