INDIANAPOLIS — As students prepare to head back to school, parents across the U.S. are gearing up with a free innovative app that provides real-time bus location, student tracking capability and alerts to get their child to and from school safely and on time. The newly enhanced app, Here Comes The Bus®, is free for the 2016-17 school year and available in the App Store and Google Play.
Here Comes the Bus is the only mobile device app in the U.S. that provides a push alert when the bus is near. Since its launch last year, Here Comes the Bus technology has been significantly enhanced to provide parents even more detailed informationincluding the bus number their child is riding as well as the time and location of their child scanning on and off the bus. Now parents can have even more peace of mind knowing their child safely made it on the right bus and got off at the right stop.
“Whether a single-parent or dual-career household, mornings are hectic and sometimes stressful to get everyone ready and out the door to school on time,” said Elizabeth James, Director of Product Strategy at Synovia Solutions. “Using the barcode on a student’s school ID or on their smartphone, the Here Comes the Bus app ensures children get on the right bus at the right time, and off at the right stop, giving parents even greater peace of mind.”
Through the enhanced Here Comes the Bus app, parents can select the alerts they want to receive and how. For instance, they can receive a push notification* or email alert when their child’s bus is within five minutes of the bus stop, when their child scans on and off the bus and the precise bus the student is riding. In addition, the app provides parents a customizable map to quickly locate the bus, track when it arrives at or leaves school, or to see if there’s a bus substitution or schedule change.
“Our parents gave us positive feedback after using the app last year,” added Mark Anderson, Director of Transportation at MSD of Decatur Township in Indianapolis. “We are thrilled about the enhancements of the app this school year and believe it will serve as a great tool to track each student to ensure he or she makes it to and from school safely each day.”
Since the launch of the app last July,Here Comes the Bus has been adopted by 87 school districts and is used by over 89,000 parents and students across the country.The website and app were created by Synovia Solutions™, a GPS software solutions company helping schools increase fuel efficiency, improve safety measures and track vehicle and student location.
One mother, a nurse and single parent of five children, uses the app daily. “Here Comes the Bus app has drastically improved our mornings. My children go to school at varying times on different buses so keeping up used to be a challenge. Now we don’t have to guess when the bus will arrive or if my kids made it home safely. It is one less thing I have to worry about each day,” said Rochelle Brewster.
Here Comes the Bus can be accessed for free for the 2016-17 school year by all parents of school districts offering the app. The app is secure, with the district providing parents a private ID that grants access to only their child’s bus. HereComes the Bus is available in three languages; users can choose between English, Spanish and French.
For more information, visit http://herecomesthebus.com/.
About Here Comes the Bus
Here Comes the Bus and Student Ridership were developed and managed by an Indianapolis-based company, Synovia Solutions. Synovia Solutions provides GPS tracking solutions to help manage vehicle fleets for schools, construction, field service, landscaping, public safety, public works and sanitation organizations. Synovia is proud to partner with Blue Bird Corporation, Verizon Wireless, Transfinder and Safety Vision. Synovia’s GPS solutions help organizations improve safety, enhance service levels and achieve savings.
