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How it works

How School Bus Tracking Works

School bus tracking works in four steps: the school adds its buses, routes and students; the driver opens the driver app at the start of a trip; the bus position streams live to the school and to parents; and every trip is recorded with its attendance and timings. A typical school is live in about thirty minutes.

The school sets up

Add buses, draw routes, order the stops, add students and assign drivers. Most schools import their student list from a spreadsheet rather than typing it.

The driver opens the app

The driver signs in on the phone in the bus and starts the trip. From that moment the position streams every few seconds, even with the phone locked and in a pocket.

Parents watch and are told

Parents open the app to a live map of their child’s bus, and get a push notification when the child boards, when the bus is near their stop, and if the trip is delayed.

The trip is recorded

When the driver ends the trip, the route, the attendance and every timing are stored. The school can replay the journey or export the register later.

Questions

How long does setup take?
About thirty minutes for a typical fleet, including adding buses, routes, stops and importing the student list. Larger fleets take longer only because there is more to import.
Do drivers need training?
Very little. The driver app has three large buttons — start trip, mark students, end trip — and is designed to be used by someone who is not comfortable with smartphones.
What phone does the driver need?
Any Android phone from roughly the last five years with a working GPS and a mobile data connection.
Can we try it on one route first?
Yes, and most schools do. Start with a single bus, then add the rest once the office and the parents on that route are happy.