The Integrated Transport Centre (ITC) of the Department of Municipalities and Transport (DMT), in cooperation with the Department of Education and Knowledge, has launched the Salama application as part of its integrated smart system for managing and tracking school transport.
The app aims to raise the levels of security and safety for students while travelling on school buses and enhance parents’ confidence in the school transport sector by boosting communication between them and schools.
The app allows parents to track children's trips once they leave their home and start their travel to school and back, as well as record a student's attendance or absence and the estimated arrival times at school and home by sending notifications to parents. It also provides parents and schools with the details of drivers and supervisors, allowing for direct communication with them.
This ITC initiative features an integrated system and applications available to parents, educational institutions, operators, bus drivers and supervisors. This allows school transport authorities to monitor students’ bus trips to and from school in real time, enabling stakeholders to be aware of the student’s whereabouts at all times and easily communicate among themselves while on the road. This will enhance the ability of relevant authorities to respond quickly in case of emergencies. The Salama app will be available to all schools in Abu Dhabi including private or government and educational partnerships.
The app enables supervisors to register the attendance or absence of students on the bus and submit reports through the app on the status of bus trips. The app also allows users to submit feedback through the smart system about any emergency that might occur during the journey, while the control room at the ITC follows up on procedures. The app also provides accurate data to support the planning, implementation and development of strategic projects to enhance the quality of school transport services in Abu Dhabi.
The application provides an operational and central platform for monitoring and evaluating the performance of all relevant authorities in the school transport system by accurately tracking pick-up and drop-off times, monitoring traffic congestion around schools, and calculating the start time of the morning journey from the time that the first student boards the school bus until the last student leaves the bus at the end of the trip. In addition to these features, the exact time the bus leaves the school perimeter is also recorded, including traffic flow information during peak times.
The ITC has implemented training sessions for all Salama application stakeholders, which included 32 workshops on the new smart system attended by representatives of 256 educational institutions including private schools, nurseries and 768 school bus operators, school transport coordinators and supervisors in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Al Dhafra Region.
ITC has reminded parents and the public to report any necessary feedback concerning school bus drivers and to not hesitate to contact the ITC if they have any suggestions, especially those related to safety by calling the Abu Dhabi Government Contact Centre on 800-850.
