at the top with board members, superintendents and any key stakeholders in the district. The second tier is the school site administrators, and then the final tier is students and parents. He noted that the cards could impact the community, as they could also offer students discounts at local restaurants. Parents of students attending Melissa Independent School District in Texas were in favor of the student ridership technology from the start. Jerad Castor, the director of transportation, noted that the district installed Tyler Drive tablets and student ridership in 2016 for an added layer of student safety. Parents also have the option to download an app and can view a time stamp of when their child scans on and off the bus. “If a kid tries to get on the wrong bus, it’s going to give [school bus drivers] an alert,” Castor explained, adding that an audible warning notifies the driver. The same is true if a child tries to get off on the wrong stop. He noted that this makes school bus drivers’ jobs easier as it improves student safety and allows drivers to build better relationships. The district transports pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, and every student who rides the bus is using an RFID card. “When students scan on, [school bus drivers] get to see the student’s information, their name, their grade, it
even shows us picture of each kid. So when that student boards the bus our bus driver is able to greet that student and call them by their first name,” Castor said. He added that logistically the technology also helps the district keep track of how many students are on each bus, and how many total student riders there are each year. This helps in years to come as it provides accurate numbers and helps the district route for the students accordingly.
An Added Benefit Amid COVID-19 Kevin Mest, senior vice president and general manager
of passenger services for Zonar, explained that most par- ents want to have some visibility into their child’s school day, which includes the school bus. Parents have access to watching public transit vehicles and Uber vehicles and want that same functionality on buses. Plus, this technolo- gy provides another layer of safety. “For example, let’s suppose a student reports that they had COVID,” Mest said. “So, the natural question is, who did that student come in contact with? Did they ride the bus? Do we know who else was on the bus, not who was scheduled to be or who was assigned, but who actu- ally rode the bus t that day and for the last three days? Because we’d like to let those parents know. I think most
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