Ability to track school bus gets easier

New app allows students, parents to see ride’s status

There’s not much worse for a student than waiting for a school bus in pouring rain, but a new app in Aldine ISD could allow students to know exactly when their buses will arrive.

On Wednesday, Aldine ISD rolled out a pilot program of a system that will let parents, guardians and students track school buses in real time. Through an app called “Here Comes the Bus,” students and parents can see the location of their bus before and after school; confirm that a child’s bus arrived at a bus stop, school or both; and receive a push notification or email when the bus is a certain distance from a bus stop.

Robin DeRouen, executive director of transportation for the Aldine ISD, said the district decided to get the system to help give parents peace of mind.

“Parents won’t have to guess when the bus will arrive or if their kids made it home safely. It is one less thing they have to worry about each day,” said DeRouen.

Many school districts — including Cy-Fair, Houston, Galena Park, La Porte, Conroe and Alief ISDs — have embedded GPS tracking devices to their buses in recent years.

Some of those districts, such as the La Porte and Houston ISDs, allow parents to track their students’ buses in real time. Others, such as Conroe ISD, allow only school administrators and staff to see when buses will arrive at campuses.

Cy-Fair ISD contracted in 2015 with the Zonar system, which shows parents when and where students

get on and off their buses. Students swipe a student ID card when they board and deboard each morning and afternoon, and an app called ZPass+ pings parents to let them know when their children arrive. It’s available as a text notification service and as an app available on Apple and Android phones.

The tracking system was rolled out to 28 of the district’s schools in 2015 and was expanded to all CyFair’s campuses this school year, said Matt Morgan, assistant superintendent of support services.

GPS bus tracking was part of the district’s 2014 bond program and costs about $1.6 million, Morgan said, while the student ID cards cost about $150,000 annually to maintain. Morgan said the tracking system will effectively pay for itself through savings it can provide and will be updated soon to show parents where students’ buses are in real time, much like Aldine’s new tracking system.

“Just the GPS system alone being able to track routes — that will create more efficiencies,” he said. “We reroute every school year to accommodate for growth, and this allows us to go back and adjust based on efficiencies and times and on-time performance at schools. It helps us lessen the amount of fuel used and time spent on the road.”

Privacy concerns

When the technology was first introduced, some parents had privacy concerns, he said. But he stressed that the system and student ID cards do not track the student’s every move, including location at a specific school. Instead, they record only when a student boards and deboards a bus.

And such knowledge can be particularly helpful during severe weather situations, Morgan said, like when tornado warnings blanketed much of Harris County on Tuesday morning.

“Whenever we have severe weather in a particular area, we can see what buses are in that area and can communicate with them and warn them of potentially hazardous situations or spots to avoid,” he said. “We also know which children are on those buses at that time so we communicate with parents if we need to, which is great.”

Ron Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center, said technology such as GPS bus tracking is part of the changing strategy of how schools are operated.

‘A fine balance’

“If you could imagine, I think probably a couple decades ago someone could steal a school bus and try to hide it. But now with tracking we know exactly where the kids are,” Stephens said. “There’s a fine balance when it comes to technology, but when it comes to tracking student transportation I think it’s different. It’s a creative, responsible and useful tool.”

DeRouen, of the Aldine ISD, said he hopes all the district’s families will sign up for the service in the coming weeks.

“I think parents will appreciate the peace of mind this app provides, but I urge all parents to remember “Here Comes the Bus” monitors the location of the bus, not the students,” DeRouen said. “Parents will receive notifications regardless of whether or not their child gets on the bus.”