School bus tracking software is used to track the bus location in a real-time. Institute can effortlessly manage and plan the entire transportation & share real time visibility of students with the parents during the transit.

With the penetration of technology into every aspect of school operations like timetabling, transfer certificate generation, fee payments, attendance management, etc., school bus tracking is also now enhanced by technology. Nowadays, there are various hardware and software tools available to manage the transportation of a school. But selecting the best system for your institution is always a time-consuming task for the institute admin.

To overcome such challenges in this article will serve the detailed information on the workings, features, and benefits of the school bus tracking management system.

What is school bus tracking software, how does it work?

School bus tracking software enhances the safety and security of students. Integrating school bus system with GPS(Global Positioning System), provides real-time location data of students to parents and school authorities and thereby gaining parent’s trust and offering them peace of mind. Through the implementation of this system, you can bring automation and control of your entire school bus operations from a single platform. School authorities can also access the bird’s eye view of the entire system.

The system works through coordination between GPS hardware, GPS Software, School ERP(Fedena) and Mobile app. All communications for the coordination are achieved through the APIs of the GPS system and School ERP system. Each bus will be installed with either a GPS or a mobile device that supports GPS. This device will update the live location of the bus and other details to the central software installed in the server. Next, software will further communicate with Fedena ERP and update live details to Fedena users. Based on the configuration the Fedena mobile app can show notification and live data of bus movement to parents and school authorities.

Key features of Bus Tracking Management System

1. Store and Manage Vehicle Information with Custom Fields

With the bus tracking management system you can maintain the entire vehicle information such as routes, stops, student allotments, fees details, fuel expense, bus repair info, license renewal, pollution check certification, etc. All these data will be available at a single location for timely reference and management. You can add more custom fields to manage any extra information regarding the bus management operations.

2. Route Management

The system also provides a comprehensive route management functionality. You can create new routes and manage the existing routes. You can also delete the redundant routes. You can add or remove stops for the new routes or existing routes. You can connect vehicles and routes and assign students to their specific routes by indicating the pick-up/drop location outside the school campus. Entire control of the route management is in your hand to change at any time. Routes and stops can be created and managed academic year wise.

3. Fee Management & Collection

The same system can be used to manage the entire fee management and collection of transportation-related receipts. Fare collection can be collected based on stop or a flat amount irrespective of the stop. School authorities can view detailed reports regarding the collected fees and pending fees and can take necessary actions. Fee collections in Fedena can be scheduled to collect transport fees and to generate receipts along with academic fees.

4. Seat Availability based Seat Allocation

Since the seat details of the vehicles are also uploaded in the system, the seat allocation takes care of the total seats available in the selected vehicle. This feature prevents errors that can be caused by wrong seat allocations without taking note of available seats.

5. Attention to Detail on Student Vehicle Route Management

You can define vehicle routes with different pickup/drop routes for every student and can send instant alerts to parents in case of route change. Attention to detail is given on every step in the student vehicle route management to ensure the safety and security of the students.

6. Alerts & Notifications to Parents

Timely alerts and notifications are sent to parents about student’s location and pickup/drop timings for that specific day. The parents will be aware in advance if the bus is late or early compared to the usual timings. Any delay in buses due to traffic blocks also will be made aware to parents through live notifications and alerts.

7. Mobile App Integration

Due to the mobile app integration, parents will receive notifications right within their mobile app. The mobile app also provides the live tracking of the school bus integrated with Google Maps.

Here are a few helpful resources to help you learn more about School Bus Management System:

Managing hostel and transport fees collection made easy Transport Route & Vehicle Creation in Fedena

Benefits to Parents

Timely detail on the child’s whereabouts

Once the school bus tracking software with GPS integration is set up properly, parents can get live details on the child’s whereabouts while on the school bus. The system will show a live route map of the bus in movement and can track timing and other details of the bus. This ensures peace of mind to parents and bird’s eye view to the administrators.

Real-time notification on arrival/departure

The system will also provide real-time notifications and alerts to parents regarding the bus’ arrival and departure. Both at school as well as near home. This ensures that the precious time of parents is not wasted by not getting real-time notifications regarding arrival and departure.

Instant alerts on route change

If there is a route change due to unforeseen circumstances, the alert will be sent immediately to parents. So that parents can anticipate any changes in bus arrival time and plan pick-up of students accordingly.

Monitor time duration at each stops

With the level of details available, parents can monitor the time spent at each stop and anticipate similar trends to plan their time accordingly.

Check travel history of child

Travel history reports are available to parents to inspect at any time. All these details keep the parents’ mind at peace.

Live bus tracking & update on traffic jam

With the availability of live bus tracking, any traffic jams and other unforeseen events in the route of the bus will be updated to parents instantly. This again makes sure the precious time of parents is saved.

Benefits to Institution

Real-Time Bus Tracking

There are many benefits to the institution when they have access to the dashboard containing real-time status of all their transportation vehicles in movement. The bird’s eye view level details provide them with the insights to take and correct decisions on the go.

Simplifies the communication with parents

With the live tracking of school buses available in the parent’s mobile phone, the communication with parents from the school side is now simplified. Without the automated system, the school administration had to take care of the communication with parents regarding the whereabouts of school buses.

Track the bus routing and stops

School leadership can track the routes and stops assigned to buses and verify whether they are strictly following the assigned routes and stops.

Prevent Unauthorised usage of School Vehicle

With the GPS installed in each of the transportation vehicles, there won’t be any unauthorized use as each movement of the vehicle will be tracked and will be part of the reports.

Easily maintain the Bus records

All the bus records of the transportation operations will be digitized and can be accessed any time for inspection and verifications.

Bus Speed Monitoring

The installed GPS system will monitor the bus speed and can detect over speeding of the drivers. Also can find out slow moving routes to make necessary route changes if required.

Track & improve fuel efficiency

With the level of details available in the reports and data collected, the fuel usage can be tracked and the data can be used to further improve the fuel efficiency by tracking more details about the vehicles with less fuel efficiency.

Track driver behavior

Proper analysis of data available in the system can help in tracking driver behavior and habits. Over speeding, rash driving, engine idle time running, sharp turns, infringing traffic rules etc. are some of the driver habits that can be tracked and these go a long way in ensuring the safe commute of the students.

Better utilization of school’s transport budget

Every school functions with a strict annual budget, including a budget for the school transport system. Investing in a GPS school bus tracking system saves the finances of the school in a number of ways. From better resource allocation for the buses to ensuring shorter routes to save fuel as well as route optimization and scheduling timely vehicle maintenance schedules, there are numerous financial benefits for a school incorporating GPS tracking devices in school buses.

Report generation

With all the detailed data available from the GPS tracking system, school leadership can generate different reports to help with decision making and improving the efficiency of school bus transportation operations.

Tips to choose Right School Bus Tracking Platform

The process of choosing the right school bus tracking platform can be divided into four steps. They are research, budget preparation, vendor selection, and compatibility and compliance checks.

The research phase starts by contacting the other schools in your geography who have implemented school bus tracking software. You can collect information from them regarding the hardware, software, vendor, price, etc. You can focus on contacting other schools of similar size as yours and having a similar number of transport vehicles. You can also research online regarding the various vendors supplying the solution. Also you can read more articles like this to gather end to end information regarding various solutions available in the market.

After this, you can start preparing a budget for the solution based on the research you have completed. Once the leadership team approves the budget, you can start contacting vendors to provide demo and details of their solution.

During the demo stage, you can also verify the compatibility of the hardware and software with your existing infrastructure. You will have to check whether the new solution is easily installable to your existing vehicles.

Also, check for the compliance standard set by the respective authority in government. Since GPS tracking systems take care of the safety and security of students as well as it contains student data, there will be standards set by the government to follow while installing and running the bus tracking software.

Conclusion

School bus tracking solution is a must for the schools and colleges to ensure the safety and security of students and ensure peace of mind to parents and school authorities. Now with various government regulations also in place, every school must have a school bus tracking solution. The benefits of the solution are many as explained in the article and the installation and setup is simplified by the vendors. If you are looking for Fedena ERP’s integration with a school bus tracking solution, contact one of our experts today.

The Complete Guide to School Bus Tracking Software