Scanning the quick response codes allows people to see the results of the safety inspections on the vehicle.
Parents of children taking buses to school in Michigan school districts will now be able to use QR codes as a tool to help to know that their kids are riding on vehicles that have been inspected and that have been deemed to be safe.
These buses are outfitted with quick response codes that will reveal the safety inspection history of the vehicle.
This school year represents the first time that parents of kids in this school districts will be able to use QR codes to see for themselves how the buses scored when the Michigan State Police last conducted an inspection. The barcodes have been affixed to the service doors of every school bus throughout the state, and this is making it possible for anyone who is interested to be able to scan and find out how the bus fared when it last when through an official inspection.
The QR codes on the buses can be scanned using any free barcode scanning app.
The QRcode on each bus is unique to that vehicle. Therefore, when it is scanned, it provides the information that is specific to that school bus and not to all of the buses in the fleet. This helps to make it fast and easy for parents and other concerned citizens to be able to check the information that is available.
According to state police Sergeant Michael McLaughlin, the supervisor of the school bus inspection unit of the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division, “We want to make our process as transparent as possible.”
By using these quick response codes, it also gives the state police the ability to gain access to the information and ideas from the public. “Once people got used to scanning, they might come up with different things they’d like to see available,” said McLaughlin. He added that “We’re open to suggestions on how to improve that.”
He also pointed out that the information available through these QR codes can be helpful in identifying trends in recurring problems in specific vehicles, so that the manufacturers of the school buses will have the ability to know about these issues and may be able to make change that will continually improve the safety of their vehicles.
