Arlington families are getting a new way to track their kids’ school bus trips, as the Northern Virginia school district announced plans to work with the bus routing app Transfinder.
The company’s parent app, called Stopfinder, uses GPS technology to track the buses. Parents receive an invitation from the school district and then download the app. Anyone who downloads the app and tries to use it without an invitation won’t be able to.
During a committee meeting in November, Arlington school officials discussed ways to improve the bus routing system. The software they previously used had been in place for over a decade, according to school board documents.
The change comes after the previous software delayed sending routing information to families and schools, and operated an inefficient routing process.
Nearby Loudoun County Public Schools and Baltimore and Anne Arundel County schools in Maryland are among the D.C.-area districts that use Transfinder, President and CEO Antonio Civitella told WTOP.
“We would like to extend our appreciation to our Superintendent, members of our School Board, Cabinet, and our Assistant Superintendent of Facilities and Operations for supporting this partnership,” Lance Johnson, Arlington Public Schools’ executive director of transportation and fleet services, said in a statement. “We are excited about the opportunities it brings and look forward to enhancing our level of service.”
The Stopfinder app, which is free for parents, allows families to sign up for various alerts, including a notification for when the bus is 10 or 15 minutes away from the pickup spot.
Last year, over 200 million alerts were sent to parents. More than 2,500 school systems across North America use the tech, Civitella said.
If a school bus is taking attendance, parents can sign up for notifications when a student gets on or off the bus.
“Parent apps have a tendency of having high friction,” Civitella said. “Friction means you have to register, you have to know kids’ IDs and so forth, and so there’s a low adoption rate. What we did, we want to make it frictionless.”
Separately, through a process called trip absorption, the company’s tech can be used to help find quick solutions when certain drivers aren’t working on any given day, he said.
“Two, three drivers are out today. Well, how do I consolidate just for today?” Civitella said. “How do you let our routing algorithm say, ‘Hey, I don’t want this to happen all the time. Today, let’s consolidate some routes.’”
The company’s Routefinder Plus technology, meanwhile, helps school divisions create the safest bus routes for students. It considers ways to minimize having kids cross the street to get on or off the bus using artificial intelligence optimization.
“We also consider the approach,” Civitella said. “Approaching a stop at the kid’s house, maybe it’s faster to come from the north. But if the kid’s on that side, it’s important to create a stop that the kid doesn’t have to cross the street. Those are really our superpower when it comes to optimization.”
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