HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Parents of Hillsborough County School students now have a new way to track their child’s school bus in real-time.
Kimberly Lasher’s oldest daughter rides the bus every day to and from school.
“She actually enjoys the bus because it gives her social time with her friends,” said Lasher.
Lasher also knows the challenges student bus riders sometimes face.
“We know the growing pains of starting a new school year and the new bus routes. However, this year it’s been a lot of late buses,” said Lasher.
Now, Hillsborough County Public Schools is launching the new Here Comes the Bus app.
It lets families know when their student’s bus is on its way with real-time GPS locations, and they’ll also be able to get an alert when the bus is within a set radius of the bus stop.
“I get that alert, hey it’s in the area, your bus is going to be there momentarily or the bus is going to drop your son off momentarily,” said Chris Farkas, the district’s Chief of Operations. “It brings some peace of mind.”
Superintendent Addison Davis said they have 90,000 students that ride the bus every single day. He said this is all about safety and making it more convenient for their parents, while taking care of students along the way.
“About over 160 bus drivers that we are short or doing double backs,” said Davis. “This really gives that comfortability to make certain that parents know that our buses are on the way and allows them to have a timing mechanism to be able to do that to interact with our buses.”
The district said phase two of the initiative, where parents will know exactly when their students entered and left the bus using ridership cards, will launch sometime next semester.
“That would be great to know where the bus is, when it’s going to be coming, and when my kid’s going to be at school,” said Lasher.
