Mobile app will track school buses
BOYERTOWN >> It’s a phrase parents have should up stairwells across the country hundreds of thousands of times.
“Hurry up! The school bus is here!”
The enduring mystery of when the bus will arrive, a question pondered by soaked or shivering school children over the years, is about to be solved for Boyertown-area school students.
On the heels of its announcement that cameras and GPS sys
tems will be installed in all 185 of its buses, Boyertown has partnered with a technology company to allow parents and students to track their bus in real time.
The name of the smartphone app is “Here Comes the Bus” and Boyertown families can download it and use it starting in August.
“We’ve got a strong focus on efficiency, effectiveness, and safety and the Here Comes The Bus mobile app fits neatly in all three of those categories,” Boyertown Schools Superintendent Dana Bedden said in a prepared release issued Friday by his office.
“The students and parents spoke, and we listened. This, along with our GPS and camera systems being installed on our vehicles, helps us to improve our services,” he said.
The app is powered by cloud-based software that will provide Boyertown schools transportation managers with the fleet information needed to run a more safe and efficient operation, according to the district release.
Launched in 2015 by Indiana-based Synovia Solutions following more than a decade in the school bus fleet management industry, the mobile app has more than a million downloads and boasts approximately 350,000 daily users across North America.
Here Comes The Bus has earned 4.6 stars on the Apple App Store with more than 50,000 reviews, according to the release issued by Beden’s office.
“We’re pleased to see the Boyertown School Board approved the investment in our solution and we’re excited to get to work to help connect and protect local families and their school’s transportation network,” Jon King, Senior Vice President of Operations for Synovia, said in the release.