Catch Up: Alan Fairless of Transportant
An exclusive Tech Tribune Q&A with Alan Fairless (co-founder and CTO) of Transportant, which was honored in our:
We last spoke in 2024. What has Transportant been up to since then?
We’ve secured additional venture funding that has helped us accelerate our marketing and business development efforts, including a refresh of our website, more digital marketing, and more public relations to highlight use cases of our technology and share our thought leadership on school bus safety technology with the transportation industry.
We are getting ready to launch new AI technology for our school bus cameras that’s able to detect if a child is left on the bus (an unfortunate but common occurrence) and a low-power camera that will act as security for buses when they are stored at night, preventing theft, vandalism, and unwanted packages.
We’re also working on an advanced stop-arm camera that will record the license plate, make, and model of cars that break the law by ignoring a stop arm and endangering children entering and exiting the bus.
What’s new with the future mission or goals of the company?
When we expand the use of our technology, more children are safeguarded across the U.S. Our recent expansion supports this goal. Transportant has now entered into the Pacific Northwest, where our technology is being used by school districts in Washington and Oregon for the first time. We’ve also just entered the state of Idaho and added two new school districts in Arkansas. And in our home state of Kansas, the Lawrence school district and Guadalupe Centers will now use our systems to keep kids safe on their buses.
To assist smaller districts that may have a small or no transportation department, we launched Transportant Solutions, a service that helps them manage the complexities and challenges of providing school transportation by maximizing efficiencies and student safety through technology.
What have you learned or has surprised you about the industry since we last spoke?
We are constantly surprised and delighted to learn about the creative ways our customers use Transportant technology to keep kids safe. We recently heard from two school districts that used our system to reroute their school buses when tornadoes threatened the safety of the riders and their drivers. They told us that our GPS location technology is the best in the industry, allowing them to use it in such critical situations as natural disasters.