STS Group has always prioritised student safety and as a responsible transport operator, they actively conduct interactive learning programmes for students, delivering lessons in road safety. 

The Road Safety Awareness Campaign was launched on 8 February 2023 in Horizon Private School, Abu Dhabi, and was attended by senior members of the Integrated Transport Centre (ITC), Road Safety UAE, and STS Group. The purpose of the campaign is to empower the student community to become advocates of road and transport safety through a unique learning environment with a curated road safety curriculum, interactive videos, and games. 

During the campaign workshops, students are assigned appropriate learning levels (Primary/Intermediate/Senior) based on their grades. They undertake lessons in road safety management and participate in engagement activities with interactive games and quizzes that teach them to treat road safety as an ongoing responsibility. 

The learning programme covers topics like travel safety protocol in the school bus and on the road and emergency protocol. One of the learning modules is based on local laws related to the use of Personal Mobility Devices (PMDs) like bicycles and e-Bikes. The campaign includes interactive board games designed to teach students about road safety practices and danger zones surrounding the school bus. Winners of the games receive goodie bags and one lucky student was awarded a bicycle, while another took home an e-Bike.

Click the link to explore the Road Safety Awareness Campaign curriculum: ITC Digital Link

Sumaya Saeed Al Neyadi, Section Head of Road Safety in ITC Abu Dhabi explains: “ITC is committed to improving road safety in line with the vision of the authorities of Abu Dhabi and of UAE Federal level, and this School Road Safety Campaign is of particular interest to ITC and the society of the UAE. As a mother of three, I can relate to the desire of all parents to make sure that our children are safe on the roads. Road safety education must start at home and at school and hence, we are delighted to collaborate with STS Group on this exciting and important campaign.”

Steve Burnell, STS Group Managing Director, said “The campaign aims to reach over 65,000 students across 20 schools over the span of six months, with the purpose of embedding traffic safety principles, proper conduct on roads, and the values of safe driving in children from an early age. By doing so constructively and systematically, we will contribute to reducing road traffic accidents and help raise a generation of safer drivers for the future.”

The campaign has been a resounding success since its launch in February and has covered eight schools across Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, and Dubai. The initiative aligns perfectly with STS Group’s holistic approach towards shaping a safety-centric culture within the community and reflects our core values of Safe, Timely, Smart. 

STS Group has received two internationally renowned Health and Safety Awards from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).

Thursday, 4 May 2023. The Address, Dubai Mall.

We are delighted to announce STS Group has won RoSPA gold awards for two consecutive years. This year, we have been selected as gold award winners for two categories, Health and Safety, and Fleet Safety. 

The glittering awards ceremony took place at The Address, Dubai Mall on the night of 4 May, Thursday. Steve Burnell (Managing Director, STS Group) and Gunaseelan Chidambaram (Senior Manager IT, STS Group) were presented with the awards by Baroness Jolly (President, RoSPA) and Errol Taylor (CEO, RoSPA). 

“These fantastic achievements highlight our passion for keeping people safe, and we are incredibly proud to have been recognised for our efforts. We aim to be an example for others in our industry as we champion and drive-up health and safety standards every day. Our Safe, Timely, Smart values resonate with us as we ensure the safety of our employees, customers, and the communities we serve.” 

Steve Burnell, Managing Director, STS Group

“Proud to be a part of a high-performing team, where safety is a way of life for both the management and operations. The guiding principles of STS Group and the recognition by RoSPA, encourage us to pursue continual improvement, on our journey of managing occupational safety and transport risk.” 

Gunaseelan Chidambaram, Senior Manager IT, STS Group

STS Group shines bright with back-to-back RoSPA gold awards, demonstrating our exemplary commitment to health and safety excellence and our continuous efforts to improve safety practices. We would like to congratulate all our stakeholders for making this remarkable accomplishment possible. 

At STS Group, we have always been committed to promoting road safety awareness among students and the broader community. As a strategic service partner to the education community, we believe it is our responsibility to continuously educate safe road practices in the younger generation. This year, we are proud to unveil our latest initiative: the UAE’s first digital platform for road safety education, called STS Traverse.

STS Traverse is an independent portal, exclusively owned by STS Group, designed to engage the student community within and beyond our network of 87 schools across the GCC. To ensure maximum impact, we have partnered with local regulatory bodies such as KHDA, MOE, Dubai RTA, SRTA, and MoT Qatar. This will enable us to extend the reach of the campaign and educate over 100,000 students during the first year.

Through the digital platform, students will participate in workshops that will cover essential modules on topics such as travel protocol, emergency evacuation procedures, and the proper usage of Personal Mobility Devices like e-Bikes and e-Scooters. Moreover, the gamification platform features interactive games that will teach users how to navigate roads safely, test their reflexes, and expand their knowledge of safety laws.

To ensure a lasting impact, STS Traverse will be integrated into the school curriculum, encouraging students to view road safety as an ongoing responsibility. As they progress through the program, students will be awarded schoolhouse points based on their performance, motivating them to excel in their road safety knowledge and practices.

As we progress through the academic term, the scalable digital platform will evolve to incorporate new modules based on our safety campaigns. We envision STS Traverse creating a generation of Safety Ambassadors who will champion road safety within their communities. This program is not just about educating students; it’s about empowering them to become responsible and safety-conscious citizens of tomorrow.

With STS Traverse, we are excited to embark on a whole new way to learn about road safety, making it engaging interactive, and, most importantly, impactful. We invite the entire community to join us in this transformative journey toward a safer and more responsible society. 

Smart Safety Bus Named Innovative Product of the Year

School Transport Services LLC, 26th February 2020

It was a proud and momentous night for the School Transport Services family when our Smart Safety Bus initiative won the prestigious Innovation Product Award at the 7th Annual GESS Education Awards 2020, in Dubai.

We are honoured and humbled to have received this accolade of excellence, for it acknowledges STS’s commitment and drive towards advocating and advancing road safety education for the UAE populace. Created as a part of the extended classroom programme for the student community, STS devised and designed its first-ever sustainable product, the Smart Safety Bus.

An innovative and interactive learning platform geared at cultivating a safety-driven mindset. The Smart Safety Bus is an age appropriate engagement platform that teaches and instructs children from nursery through secondary schools. This is done in both Arabic and English.

This purpose-built Smart Safety Bus offers 3D simulation games, puzzles, multiple choice questions that make learning easy and fun. Students learn the importance of traffic safety principles and how to identify potential hazards through educational videos via the Interactive Wall feature of the bus. Their learning is assessed by way of Q&As and quizzes. Children can enjoy a simulated driving experience with the Super Driver game or a practical experience of buckling up for safety, with the Seat Belt game.

GESS awards celebrate the education industry’s brightest assets, and this recognition puts us at the very forefront of the education sector in the UAE. The GESS Education Award in the Innovation category highlights educational products and services that are unique and impactful, demonstrating STS’s original and ahead-of-the curve thinking.

Watch the GESS Awards highlight video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQs12h_BjxU

“The GESS award has been very important to us because it is a platform to us to be recongnised upon a wider community.”, said the Managing Director of STS, Steve Burnell, in response to winning the award.

STS received this fantastic recognition across a diverse range of nominees from the education sector including Popcorn school furniture, Amatrol and Betzold. We are energised by the momentum brought forth by this award and excited to explore new possibilities to further road and traffic safety awareness.

Media Coverage: https://teachmiddleeastmag.com/top-educators-and-suppliers-recognised-at-gess-awards-2020-in-dubai/

Hop on the Smart Safety Bus, STS’s Classroom on Wheels, a 50-seater bus remodeled to deliver lessons on Road Safety!

School Transport Services has always advocated and pursued the promotion of road safety management through unique educational campaigns. Standing firm in the belief that Safety Does Not Happen By Accident and that stringent safety standards can be achieved only when awareness campaigns are regularly deployed, STS designed the Smart Safety Bus initiative to edutain young minds. This new approach of educating while entertaining has proven to be a more engaging experience than traditional means of instruction.

The Smart Safety Bus is an age appropriate engagement platform to teach and edutain children from nursery through secondary schools. This is done in both Arabic and English. The purpose-built Smart Safety Bus offers a mix of 3D simulation games, puzzles, multiple choice questions that make learning easy and fun. 

Students learn the importance of traffic safety principles and how to identify potential hazards through educational videos via the Interactive Wall feature of the bus. Their learning is assessed by way of Q&A’s and quizzes. Children can enjoy a simulated driving experience with the Super Driver game or a practical experience of buckling up for safety, with the Seat Belt game. 

The outdoor Danger-Zone Awareness Mat highlights the hazardous spots in and around the bus that automatically sound off alarms. All smart devices and screens are powered by solar energy, making it a sustainable vehicle.

In effort to ensure continued awareness and learning towards road safety, the programme appoints a Little Safety Ambassador from the group. The ambassador receives a safety badge and certificate, making them responsible for advocating road and transport safety to their peers, teachers and parents. The success of the Smart Safety Bus programme is reflected in the students taking a safety pledge after the tour, that prompts them to the importance of road safety management.

Being a recipient of the coveted Innovation Product Award by GESS Education Awards has strengthened our resolve to expand the initiative to all corners of the country.

Set in motion in early 2019, it is astonishing how far this initiative has come along in just one year. So far we have achieved,

6 exhibition visits

47 school visits

22,463 safety pledges have been signed

1,129 Little Safety Ambassadors have been appointed

Going forward, plans are underway to link students’ participation and their takeaways from the programme to their school’s credits system and house points. This is being done to encourage them to focus on traffic safety as an ongoing responsibility.

To book a ride a ride on the Smart Safety Bus click here.

At STS, student safety lies at the heart of everything we do and built around this ethos, is STS’s Smart Bus. Geared with state-of-the-art technologies, STS’s Smart Buses house some truly unique functions designed to keep students safe at all times. More than 3,100 Smart Buses operate within the UAE.

Let’s get on board to understand how its features work.

CCTV SURVEILLANCE

STS’s Smart Buses are all equipped with CCTV surveillance systems that consist of a seven-camera set up. Four external cameras are placed on the bus’s exteriors to view its immediate surroundings. Three internal cameras cover the bus door, front and last rows of the bus. This surveillance system ensures video coverage of all parts of the bus.

The feed from all seven cameras can be viewed in real time, on the driver’s screen and in the Operations Control Centre (OCC). The video footage is backed up and stored in a Mobile Digital Video Recorder (MDVR) for up to ninety days.

ADAS CAMERAS

These front facing cameras are a recent addition to the Smart Bus. As part of the bus’s Advanced Driver Assistance Safety system (ADAS) aides and warns drivers on the road by enabling a visual safety net around the bus, reducing the risk of collisions.

DRIVER’S DASHBOARD

The driver’s dashboard hosts numerous controls and levers but the main feature here is the LED screen that displays feed from the CCTV surveillance system in real time. Of the seven internal and external cameras, the screen shows videos of four cameras at a time, which the driver can manually select. Accompanying the screen is a radio walkie that lets the driver establish direct contact with the OCC team.

ALERT BUTTON

In case of an emergency, such as a road accident or a flat tire, the driver can sound the Alert Button on the driver’s dashboard, which will register an immediate alert with the OCC, enabling the them to find the best way to assist the driver.

GPS TRACKING

Global Positioning Systems on all our Smart Buses is the key element that allows real time tracking of STS’s fleet. This information is programmable and is constantly recorded in the MDVR. In addition to contributing to student safety, the GPS tracking assists the OCC team in developing route plans and optimising journey times for buses.

DRIVER FATIGUE CAMERA

One of the Smart Buses many unique features, is the fatigue detection system. It consists of a driver-facing camera, mounted on the driver’s dashboard with a full view of his face and eyes.

The camera utilizes pupil identification technology to analyze the driver’s blink rate. It picks up other fatigue indicating behavior such as yawning and head drooping. Behaviour such as mobile usage and oral intake also trigger warnings. The system maintains a video record for each alert, for post incident analysis and evaluation.

RFID SYSTEM

Installed near the driver’s seat in all our Smart Buses, is an RFID scanner. Designated students of each bus are issued RFID cards, which are scanned when they get on and off the bus, enabling the OCC team to track student movement.

This encrypted data is more reliable and secure than traditional barcode scanners and can be continuously monitored in real time by the OCC. Parents can monitor bus arrival and departure timings and real time information on their ward through the STS Smart App.

CHILD CHECK BUTTON

All Smart Buses have a Child Check Button installed on the back wall. Once the driver turns off the engine, he manually checks each row of the bus to ensure no one has been left behind. He presses the Child Check button as a sign of having completed his safety check.

This feature is especially useful when it comes to nursery children who tend to fall asleep during long bus rides. It acts as a safety net to ensure that no child gets left behind.

MOTION SENSOR

Our Smart Buses are equipped with passive motion sensors that are activated when the vehicle is isolated. These sensors detect even the slightest body movement. They add an additional level of security to the Child Check Button feature of the bus.

Upon detection of movement, the sensor immediately alerts the OCC. This allows the OCC team to take immediate action such as informing parents and establishing contact with the child through the driver’s radio walkie. An STS bus guardian is arranged to receive the child and only upon their arrival does the OCC team open the bus doors.

All Smart Bus’s safety checks and measures are managed and monitored by the OCC, the nexus of our operations. This team works around-the-clock, responds immediately to all alerts and notifications, and collates information generated by the Smart Bus. The information gathered across the OCC’s screens are turned into weekly, monthly and annual reports which form the basis of all operations related decision making for the company.

The Smart Bus embodies STS’s commitment towards Safe, Timely, Smart transportation and cultivates a safety-driven mindset within the community.