The safety of students while they are travelling in school buses is of paramount importance. Schools must ensure the complete safety of students during their commutes to and from school, just as they must ensure the safety of students on the school campus. Several steps can be taken to provide safe travel for students, like only appointing drivers after undertaking a thorough background verification process, appointing bus attendants, installing CCTVs, etc.

One other thing that can completely be a game changer for student safety is school bus tracking applications. These highly advanced applications can be integrated with the school buses to provide a bird's-eye view of the entire school bus fleet to the school administration. School bus tracking applications will allow schools to have cutting-edge tools at their disposal to guarantee a safe and secure school commute for their students.

What exactly is a School Bus Tracking Application?

In simple terms, School Bus Tracking Applications are software that uses GPS tracking technology to track school buses during their trips. Apart from this basic feature, some of the more advanced applications have more sophisticated features that help schools to monitor and manage all the aspects of their school bus fleet. These features include student attendance, vehicle management, driver management, route optimization, auto-trip generation, SOS alerts, etc.

By utilising these applications, schools can improve the performance, efficiency, and security aspects of their existing fleet of school buses.

The following is the list of the best 8 school bus tracking applications:

1. Loqqat

Loqqat is a smart and easy-to-use student ridership application that will elevate the performance of a school’s transport management by providing features such as real-time school bus tracking, automatic trip creation, trip notifications, and much more. It's a one-stop solution for schools looking to efficiently manage and optimise their school transport system.

The time-consuming process of school transportation management is made easier to track and evaluate thanks to Loqqat's comprehensive web interface, which includes a number of innovative features that help the school transport team to overcome the challenges they confront on a regular basis. It also gives schools an advantage in operations such as ad-hoc trip generation, optimal route design and monitoring other data points such as student ridership, trip details, and bus delay frequency, among others. Therefore, Loqqat is the best school bus tracking app that revolutionizes the way schools run and operate their school bus system.

It has three components that work in an integrated manner to offer the perfect and safe school commute for students:

· Admin Panel · Parent App · Driver App

2. Trackschoolbus

It is one of the most popular school bus applications on the market. This application makes it easy for the administrators and the drivers to coordinate their daily trips. The fleet manager module of the application will be of great help for the administrators to supervise and organize their entire fleet in an effective way.

Furthermore, with features such as video surveillance and audio announcements, it gets very convenient for schools to monitor individual school buses and disseminate information to students and drivers during trips.

3. Here Comes the Bus

This application uses RFID tags or barcode readers to pinpoint the location of students. It gives parents and schools information such as whether the student is in the bus, at the stop, or at the school.

The application also comes with an ETA feature that shows parents the exact time of the bus's arrival, thus ensuring that no student misses the bus. Here Comes the Bus also addresses the prospect of children getting on the wrong bus by alerting the parents right away.

4. Versatrans

Versatrans is a school bus tracking application that offers more than what other basic applications provide. Its most remarkable feature is Routing and Planning, through which schools can conduct route analysis to plan their routes efficiently in order to cut down on operating costs. The Online Information Portal of Versatrans acts as a noticeboard for parents and staff where important information and updates can be published, which can significantly reduce the number of calls from parents.

5. School Bus Tracker

School Bus Tracker offers schools and parents a lot of flexibility regarding the school commute. Apart from real-time tracking of school buses and students, the parent application of School Bus Tracker offers features to book ad hoc trips and make payments for them. Therefore, those students who only occasionally travel in school buses can also be integrated into the application and given a safe school commute.

6. WheresTheBus

WheresTheBus is a cloud-based GPS tracking solution that can be integrated into your existing fleet of school buses. It offers basic features like school bus tracking and student location updates. They are one of the pioneers in making tracking solutions for school buses. WheresTheBus is a straightforward and effective school bus tracker that satisfies the fundamental requirements of a safer school bus system.

7. NeoTrack

NeoTrack provides biometric attendance in school buses to provide a fool-proof record of student location and attendance. Additionally, the application can also provide video and audio surveillance inside the school buses for better accountability and security.

It can also help schools with route optimization, thus enabling the transport managers to create optimal routes for the entire fleet so that they are time and fuel efficient.

8. Buswhere

Buswhere is a school bus tracking application that’s also a powerful route planner. Using the route planning tool, the school transport team can design optimal routes by factoring in various scenarios. You can easily add and remove stops from the route to check how it affects the duration of a trip, making sure that you can always plan and create the best route available at a particular time. Most importantly, historical ETAs can also be checked to further help you reach a conclusion when planning the routes.

Final Thoughts

School bus applications have become the need of the hour in today’s times. With ever-increasing reports of school bus related mishaps, it is high time that schools and authorities understand the capabilities of a technology-driven school transport system in averting them. Employing a school bus tracking application is the most prudent and practical way to address the concerns of parents and eliminate the vulnerabilities of a conventional school transport system.