Don’t you think that it would be amazing if you were able to see the current position of your child’s school bus on google map? Don’t you think that it would be great if you were able to check whether your bus is running late or not? Don’t you want to get an estimate of its arrival or get a notification in case he/she is behind the schedule? Wouldn’t it be great if you were notified in case of an emergency or an unwanted situation?
With the emerging science and developing technology, it is now possible for you to track the current position of your child’s school bus. As we know that security is one of the topics of concern for all school students and their parents, employees, and management as well. Hence, such technology features play an important role in ensuring the security of the students in school buses. The school administration along with the parents of the students can track the status of the bus which automatically provides a peace of mind to both of them.
The parents with the help of a specialized tracking system can easily detect and check the position of their bus, are they safe or not, or in how much time they will arrive. Now, the school buses are equipped with some additional safety services along with the GPS (Global Positioning System) tracking devices and applications. These services provide support for real-time tracking of school buses and students to the school management and administration. Apart from providing information to the school administration, these services also enable the bus companies to enhance the security measures and provide better services to the school students.
Some of the basic functions performed by the security services, GPS tracking systems, and applications are as follows:
- It notifies parents about the time of arrival of students.
- It also notifies parents when students leave to their home from school.
- It also notifies parents when their child enter into or get down the school bus.
- It enables parents as well as school management to track the location of the school bus.
- It notifies parents and school management in case of an emergency.
Nowadays, there are so many companies which provide buses for schools. It is the responsibility of these companies to update the security measures and maintain the proper functioning of the buses. They are responsible for ensuring the safety of the students sitting in the bus. In order to ensure the safety of the students, they can install GPS trackers on each bus so that they can track the location of every bus. They can also track the route that each bus follows and monitor the driving ability of the bus driver.
However, such tracking solution does not guarantee or provide real-time coverage of school buses to parents and school administration. Hence, a location-sharing service is required in order to have real-time coverage of the school bus. The schools can purchase any School Bus Location Sharing System which will be further connected with GPS devices installed inside the school buses in order to provide real-time GPS tracking. Such school bus location-sharing platforms provide several functions such as:
- Real-time monitoring of the school buses
- Information like where the buses are when they will depart and arrive
- Email and push notifications to the parents
In this modern world, there are a lot of such school bus location sharing services available. You need to choose very carefully from all the available options. Now, we will discuss some of the commonly used school bus location sharing platforms.
BusWhere
BusWhere can be defined as the bus location tracking system which is easy to use and set up. It uses smart route detection technology which automatically tracks the school buses (equipped with GPS). It does not need any specific program to run or work and hence can easily work along with other existing tracking systems.
BusWhere provides detailed information related to the location of the school buses and routes of the buses to the parents. Whenever the bus reaches near to the stop, the parents are notified by the tracking system. This tracking system provides an ETA of students when the bus leaves from the school. The users can access this tracking system with the help of a web portal and mobile application as well. It is a robust application which does not require daily maintenance and hence termed as a reliable service for parents and school administration as well.
BusWhere application provides detailed information related to each bus running on different routes to the school administration. The detailed information includes fuel level of each bus, current speed and location of the bus, and the current route of the bus. This application also enables school administrators to send messages or notifications to the parents in case of delay due to weather or any other reason.
In addition to the above-mentioned features, it also provides support for a school bus eligibility portal which allows parents to check whether the transport service is available at their location or not. This portal helps school management to prevent the flood of inbound calls related to the query of same. It is not an open-source application. However, it provides a trial version also so that the schools can try it before purchasing.
Treker
Treker is a useful tracking application which provides detailed information to the parents, school management and administration, and drivers of the buses. The parents can get to know at what time their wards will come, what is the current location of the bus, and whether their wards are on the bus or not. They receive push notifications regarding departing and arriving time of the bus.
Treker provides a separate portal for the school administrators to detect the location of each bus running on several routes. They can see all the stops on their screen. The drivers of the buses are equipped with a tablet which contains all the necessary information such as all the bus stops. They can notify both, the school administration and parents in case any student is dropped at the wrong location.
Treker provides a BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacon for the students to carry which enables parents as well as administrators and drivers to detect when the student enters into and get down the bus. The information transmitted through the Treker beacon is highly secured and encrypted.
Here Comes the Bus
Here Comes the Bus is one of the most popular and widely used school bus location sharing application. This application comes with two subscription plans, known as Here Comes the Bus (Basic), and Student Ridership (student tracking software).
The basic subscription plan allows parents to track the location of the school bus of their ward. The parents receive push notifications when the bus departs from the school and also get to know about the ETA of the bus. This plan also offers email alerts, if the bus is behind schedule or is near to the stop, or if it has been substituted.
The second subscription plan, Student Ridership, can be defined as the student tracking software which has the ability to track whether a student has entered into the bus or not when the student entered into and get down the bus, and at which stop the student entered or exited the bus. This information is captured with the help of RFID tracking cards. This software also provides detailed information to the school administrators along with the parents.
TripSpark Education
TripSpark Education is one of the most renowned school bus location sharing platform. This platform is providing its services for the last 30 years. It is highly popular and widely used in schools of North America. It is connected with more than 50000 buses and has data of more than 2 million students.
Like Here Comes the Bus, TripSpark Education also provides detailed information about the location of the school bus, information about the students such as when they entered into and get down the bus. It uses RFID tracking cards to track and transmit such information. The only disadvantage of this application is that it does not provide any mobile application. Hence, the users need to access this application from web portal only.
So, we have discussed all the common school bus location sharing systems. You can choose as per your requirement for all the available options. But, in order to ensure the security of the students and the safety of the school buses, we need to focus on some other factors as well. Some of these factors are as follows:
- Every school must instruct their bus drivers not to drive beyond the speed limit.
- If possible, there should be some unoccupied seats in the last row of the bus.
- Every school must instruct their bus drivers to strictly follow the traffic rules.
- Every school must instruct their bus drivers to keep buses clean.
- Every school must instruct their bus drivers to keep a first aid kit on the bus.
- Each bus driver needs to ensure that the students inside the bus are appropriately seated.
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