SPECIAL REPORT
Integration is Key Lam Nguyen-Bull is the chief experience officer at
Edulog and leads the company’s advisory services team. Edulog claims it is the original school bus routing soft- ware company and has been providing routing and planning software solutions to districts across North America since 1977. Nguyen-Bull said a key attribute to success is integration with other software and ap- plications such as routing and GPS systems as well as scanning systems that register students boarding the bus. “The reality is that many parents currently track their kids via their cell phones,” she said. “The key is that a useful student ridership application has to be completely integrated with the routing system to provide informa- tion that is specific to the student’s trips to and from school. The app needs to let parents know when the bus is planned to arrive at the stop and then give the parents a heads up when the bus is nearby. Then, as the student boards the bus, the ridership piece kicks in. The student scans on with an RFID card, maybe a bar code, or the driver “boards” the student on a mobile data terminal (tablet) application. Parents are notified in the app that the student has boarded the bus. Similarly, the parents are notified when the student exits the bus. This might happen a couple of times each morning if the student transfers buses during their trip to school.” Once implemented and adopted, it’s important for schools to monitor the utility of new apps and features, as well as their effectiveness. Houston County School District pays attention to
the data metrics readily available as subscribers to the CalAmp applications. “We currently have approximately 15,536 stakehold-
ers utilizing the HCTB app notifications,” said Walmer. “That number is an indication of the success of the roll out. When my staff takes parent calls about bus stop locations and times, it is our practice to ask if the parent utilizes the app. The majority of the time, the answer is yes and includes positive comments. If they do not use the app, it is our practice to bring it to their attention and encourage them to download the app. A testament to the popularity of the app is away from work while in the community. Whether at church, the grocery store or such, when a person finds out that we work at the school district transportation department, people give unsolicit- ed feedback about how much they love the app.” Stow with Fulton County Schools said app usage
indicates when there might be an issue like a school bus driver forgetting to log into a route. “The phone calls tend to increase in measure and expose an issue,” he said. “CalAmp provides excellent customer service with their team and always resolves
22 School Transportation News • MARCH 2026
any issues quickly which helps us provide the best ser- vice possible.”
App Features ‘Wish List’ Continues to Grow While bus tracking apps are progressing along a curve
of early integration, there are many features that users and app producers wish to see. “We are currently in the process of implementing an existing feature of the Cal-Amp technology and Here Comes the Bus: Student ridership scans,” said Walmer. “We piloted the ridership scans in May of 2025 and had new hardware installed on all of our buses over the sum- mer. We did a soft roll out of the scans at the beginning of this school year and will have full implementation later this month. This is another excellent feature that enhances student safety. Transportation department and school staff have the ability to see from their com- puters what students are on any given bus in real time, or search for an individual student to see what bus a student is on. It also allows us to see where and when a student boarded or exited a bus. This enhances our drivers’ ability to be successful by notifying them when a student scans whether they are an eligible rider or not, and whether they are the assigned bus or not. It will also notify the driver when a student scans to exit the bus at a stop other than their assigned one.” Transfinder is another producer of apps for pupil transportation. “Based on what Transfinder is hearing from our clients as well as from the industry at large, a common wish list of items include predictive ETA adjust- ments [and] not just real-time location, but responsive to outside forces such as traffic, localized emergency alerts, notifications specific to route disruptions due to weather, accidents, or school closures with recommended alterna- tives,” said spokesman Rick D’Errico. He continued, “If alerts are tailored to just those im- pacted, the likelihood of parents not silencing their alerts is increased, and language [translation] for multilingual support.” Edulog’s Nguyen-Bull said gaps are in daily opera-
tions. “Try as we might, we have not come up with a card that can’t be lost or misplaced,” she said. “That’s why it is so beneficial to have a Plan B, for example, an inter- face that allows a bus driver to mark that a student has boarded the vehicle. Districts find out that this becomes an onerous task for drivers if it gets out of hand. That is, if Plan B is invoked too much. Some districts charge families for replacement cards, but that approach has its shortcomings, too.” Ortlieb of CalAmp added the company is releasing
more advanced safety, security and efficiency features. “For example,” he explained, “giving districts the
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76
