News
Location Apps Fostering Transparency, Communication Gain in Popularity
WRITTEN BY JIM ROMEO F
or parents of children who ride a school bus in any of the districts within Stark County near Canton, Ohio, know- ing the whereabouts of their children’s bus just got easier. Te Alliance City School District has 22 buses already
wired with a GPS system. Parents may register and download a corresponding app, “Here Comes Te Bus.” It is available at no charge, as the school district has already paid the bill to make the application available to its school bus customers. Parents and stu- dents can see where the bus is and can even choose a radius of up to 500 feet around their home so they may receive an automatic alert when the bus is near. Technology that provides information between all the stakehold- ers of bus transportation is in demand and emerging.
CONVENIENCE AND TRANSPARENCY Alliance City School District, like many others districts nation- wide, seek solutions that provide transparency and convenience. Tis is not only for the parents and student, but also for transpor- tation directors, school staff, bus drivers. Transportation department employees are already overburdened with inquiries and requests from concerned parents wanting to know where their child’s bus is. If it’s late, or even early, parents may call the school. Someone has to take his or her call and respond in
kind. With a GPS enabled app, the call is no longer necessary. For Synovia Solutions, maker of the “Here Comes the Bus” app, technology performs double duty. For parents, it gives a welcome peace of mind by knowing their child’s precise whereabouts, and how long they have each morning before the bus arrives. It pro- vides efficiency and economy for school administrators, who can save on both time and money. “With budget cuts and driver shortages, districts need to become
more efficient and identify ways to save money,” commented Elizabeth James, director of product strategy at Synovia Solutions. She said the company’s GPS software platform offers several ways districts to re- duce costs while improving student safety and parent communication. “Te Here Comes the Bus app was designed to help keep students safe, provide parents extra peace of mind, and give school districts an opportunity to offer a free service and improve com- munication with parents,” she added. Like Synovia’s app, the Treker app informs parents and school officials the students’ whereabouts on the bus. In conjunction with the app, students receive a personal Treker RFID card or tag. Schools that prefer to scan a QR or barcode may also use them for campus entry, the cafeteria or the library. Students are checked on or off the bus when the Treker Driver App recognizes their Treker card (or oth- er entry method. Te bus driver can also manually input the data.
FEWER PHONE CALLS, MORE ACCOUNTABILITY When parents are at ease, phones ring less at the school. Now school staff can focus on other matters, be more efficient, save time and ultimately reduce spending. Schools districts using Treker said they have seen a drop in the number of calls regarding student and bus locations and status, as parents can now see this information themselves on the Treker app,” said Jim Berger, an advisor to Treker and the app’s acting chief operating officer. “Te time spent resolving calls from parents or school front offices has also decreased, since administrators can quickly search and find the real-time status of a student or bus as well as review any historical trip details.” Increased communications between drivers and transportation
directors are also improved with the right technology. Patrick Gallagher is the director of sales at SafeStop, Inc, which also makes software that works in conjunction with downloadable apps for bus accountability and transparency. “Te result is that when a transportation department does the little things to ensure the information placed in the app is accurate, they can decrease parent phone calls up to 90 percent,” said Gallagher. “Tey can quickly find areas where operations can improve, and they increase communication between parents and all departments at the school or district.”
24 School Transportation News • JUNE 2017 CELEBRATING25YEARS
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