An IoT Enabled Intelligent School Bus Safety and Emergency Response System

Abstract

Ensuring schoolchildren\'s safety during transportation has become a major concern for both parents and schools. This project introduces an Internet of Things-based Smart School Bus Monitoring and Student Safety System that provides student attendance real-time monitoring, tracking, and immediate alerts. RFID cards are given to students in order to track boarding and disembarking, and parents receive SMS notifications about their child\'s whereabouts. Students or drivers can quickly generate alerts using live GPS location by pressing an emergency button located inside the bus. Accidents are avoided and a safe environment is created by safety systems like speed control, gas and fire sensors, and alcohol detection. In general, this is an affordable and efficient system that enhances student security and offers peace of mind to parents and school authorities

Introduction

The proposed system integrates Internet of Things (IoT) technologies such as GPS, RFID, GSM, and sensors to enable continuous monitoring and automated safety responses. GPS provides real-time tracking of bus location and speed, while GSM enables instant SMS or call alerts to parents and authorities. RFID technology automatically records student boarding and deboarding for accurate attendance tracking. Additional safety sensors, including gas/alcohol detectors (MQ sensor) and fire sensors, help detect hazardous conditions inside the bus and trigger emergency alerts. An emergency alarm system further enhances passenger safety.

The literature review shows that existing systems typically focus on partial solutions such as GPS tracking, RFID attendance, or mobile notifications, but often lack integrated safety features like emergency handling, environmental hazard detection, or cost-effective comprehensive monitoring.

The system is built around an ESP32 microcontroller, which acts as the central controller managing all sensor data and communication. Key components include the SIM900A GSM module for messaging, NEO-6M GPS module for location tracking, RFID reader and cards for student identification, and safety sensors like MQ gas sensor and fire sensor for hazard detection. An LCD display is also used for real-time status updates for the driver.

Conclusion

The proposed system, \"IoT-based Smart School Bus Monitoring and Student Safety System,\" will provide an efficient and reliable solution to ensure the safety of school children during transportation. This system will utilize various technologies such as RFID, GPS, GSM, and sensors to track the bus in real time, monitor attendance, and send notifications to parents and school authorities. The system will reduce manual intervention and errors to a great extent because it will be able to perform various operations such as student identification, attendance, and status updates. It will also enhance safety because it will be able to monitor the conditions inside the bus using sensors such as fire, smoke, and alcohol sensors. The system will also include an emergency alert system. inclusion of a web-based monitoring system will also enhance transparency because it will enable real-time monitoring of the bus and activities inside the bus. This system will also enable faster response time in emergency situations and improve communication between parents and school management. The proposed system is cost-effective, efficient, and simple to implement, making it suitable for a smart transportation system. This system will enhance safety, efficiency, and trust among parents.

References

[1] H. Gull et al., \"Smart School Bus Tracking: Requirement and Design of School Bus Tracking IoT based System,\" Proc. ICOEI, 2021, pp. 388–394. [2] N. Shyam et al., \"SMS Based Kids Tracking and Safety System through RFID and GSM,\" IJISET, vol. 2, no. 5, pp. 793–798, May 2015. [3] M. Malleswari et al., \"College Bus Management System Based on RFID,\" IRJET, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 1666–1669, Mar. 2018. [4] K. K. More and V. Bhosale, \"IoT Based Biometric School Bus Monitoring and Tracking Attendance System,\" JETIR, vol. 6, no. 5, May 2019. [5] J. R. C. et al., \"Android Application of a School Bus Tracking and Student Monitoring System,\" IEEE ICCIC, 2018. [6] M. M. Uddin et al., \"IoT Based Smart School Bus with In-time Student Monitoring,\" Proc. IJCC, 2024. [7] K. Anitha et al., \"RFID and GPS Smart Attendance System of School Children Monitoring through Blynk Platform,\" IJNRD, vol. 10, no. 6, Jun. 2023. [8] \"A Novel Method of Smart School Bus Tracking System Based on ML and IoT,\" IRJET, vol. 9, no. 7, Jul. 2022. [9] S. Shah and B. Singh, \"RFID Based School Bus Tracking and Security System,\" Proc. ICCSP, 2016. [10] J. I. Sojol et al., \"Smart School Bus: School Going Children are Safe on the Road,\" Proc. ICACT, 2019.

Copyright

Copyright © 2026 B. Manasa Sahu, G. Mahesh, V. Siva Ganesh, Ch. Samuel, Ch. Nitish. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.