About 44,000 buses in Japan operated by nursery schools and kindergartens nationwide must comply with a government requirement to be fitted with such systems by April 2024, as Japanese news website NHK News reports.
The Japanese government installed this new regulation after the death of a three-year-old girl in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan, last September. She was forgotten inside a school bus for hours and died of heatstroke. The system starts operating directly after the bus's engine has stopped. An alarm will sound until the driver
presses a button in the back of the vehicle. This forces the driver or an attendant to walk to the back of the bus and meanwhile check for any remaining children. The system will also send a text message to the phones of the child-care facility staff if its camera or microphone detects any children inside. (Source: NHK News).