An app called Here Comes the Bus recently launched by Synovia Solutions promises to help keep parents informed about where their children are in real-time.
Here Comes the Bus, also available as a website, provides parents with the real-time location of their child’s school bus via computer, tablet, or mobile phone for the new school year, said Elizabeth James, director of product strategy at Synovia Solutions.
The app can also alert parents when their child’s bus is near or update parents when the bus is delayed. This way parents can avoid long wait times while always being there to meet their children at the bus stop. This is especially useful in inclement weather.
Company officials also said making this information available improves a school district’s customer service to parents and reduce bus-related phone calls.
School districts can choose to offer parents either basic or full access to the app, according to James. Basic access gives parents access to real-time bus locations on any device via the Here Comes the Bus app, while full access allows parents to purchase the app, which offers push notifications.
With the app or website, parents will be automatically alerted when their child’s bus enters a certain perimeter, giving parents time to prepare to their child to be at the stop on time.
The app includes a map display pinpointing the location of the bus in real time, so parents can know if it is running early or late; student arrival and departure information at the bus stop and the school; notifications of bus arrival times; and student privacy, with private ID numbers issued to parents so they can only access information on their child’s bus.
The app is built using Synovia’s Silverlining platform and integrates six of its tracking tools to allow Her Comes the Bus to manage issues such as buses being substituted at the last minute.
“Our back-end system is designed to keep updating information for school districts and school bus contractors, who are now conditioned to look at the buses as parents would,” explained James.
