Innovations in telematics and technology are continuously shaping the world for the better. There is nothing you cannot track and monitor from your mobile phone. Using GPS Tracking becomes a standard in private fleets. A school bus is one of the vehicles that benefit from the features of GPS Tracking.
With school transportation, the protection of children is the biggest priority for their schools and parents alike. Especially, children on the way to school via a school bus. These are concerns for parents in terms of safety, like whether the bus is in good operating condition, the bus takes a safe route, or a driver is following the proper route. GPS tracking takes care of these concerns and also adds a ton of operational benefits for school boards and private bus operators. GPS tracking will help improve fleet efficiency and provide safety for children.
Let’s dive into the features of GPS tracking and how schools and parents can benefit from it.
How does it work?
The school bus GPS tracking system allows the school and parents to gain visibility, safety and manage the GPS location of the school buses along with arrival and departure times at every stop along the route, including route optimization, route history, and schedule. Think of a parent who knows the Buses ETA to a stop and doesn’t have to wait in the cold with their child during inclement weather.
By connecting the GPS tracking system with fleet management software, the schools can monitor, track and manage all school buses to operate on time and safely. Parents, using a GPS Tracking app on their smartphone, can monitor and track the whereabouts of their children, the time and location they are picked up and dropped off, and which school bus they took.
Features of GPS tracking for school buses
Combination with fleet management software gives you full operational support;
- Stops and ETA
- Route adherence
- Schedule management
- Buses are visible to parents and school boards alike
- Auto assignment of a bus to a route
- Late, Early arrival notifications to parents and school boards
- Detailed reporting
- Real-time tracking on the map with scaling features
Benefits of using GPS tracking for school buses
The advancements in GPS tracking and cloud-based technology have made real-time tracking a necessary solution for schools today. A centralized GPS for school buses provides an opportunity for schools to keep an eye on the entire fleet that is in operation and for parents to only see the bus and ETA of their children’s route.
Let’s take a look at some benefits from everyone’s perspective, Schools and Parents.
Benefits for schools
Improve routing and scheduling
Instead of planning routes manually, the application helps you generate optimal travel routes more efficiently.
Based on service time commitments, route preferences, what kind of capacity the vehicle has, and traffic, the application provides planned routes with information on the estimated arrival time and mileage of each stop and route. Optimal routes will result in increasing commitment of operational schedule, increased customer & driver satisfaction, and cost savings.
Improve Fuel efficiency
Effective transportation management not only saves time by optimizing routes but also saves money.
Optimized routes and eliminated unauthorized trips allow school transportation to cut mileage, fuel, and maintenance expenses. Drivers spend less time on the road, along with optimized and improved routes, which results in reduced fuel consumption and reduced operation time.
Fleet management software also provides you with impactful reporting so that you can see precisely which areas need to be improved to lower costs and increase profits.
Monitor bus driver’s performance & behavior and assure the safety of children
Real-time monitoring and data enable a school to measure driver behavior and safety. The fleet management software allows school authorities to track the school bus operation in real-time. It improves planning accuracy, driver discipline, and children’s transportation quality.
Benefits for parents
Assuring safety
By letting children have an ID tracker or smartwatch tracker integrated with fleet management, parents can get real-time information about the children’s exact whereabouts.
In addition, parents can see real-time school bus location, where and when students board the bus, and receive real-time alerts if unusual events are happening.
Route history
Parents can check their children’s travel history so that they are not concerned about the safety of the vehicle and their children.
Arpaway GPS Tracking for school buses
One of our vendors, ERM Telematics is one of the most advanced manufacturers for fleet management applications, location, diagnostics to present next-level data in specialty applications like waste management and school transportation. By using the tags in conjunction with ERM’s hardware, you can monitor whether a child got on and off the correct bus – or any bus at all.
Find out more about ERM Telematics hardware at https://www.arpaway.com/erm-telematics/