Here Comes The Bus Supports COVID-19 Relief Efforts

Here Comes The Bus serves as essential support tool

• More than 50,000 app users continued to log on in April despite the school closures

• Nearly 500 School Buses logged at least 1,000 miles in April

• School bus mileage is down 90 percent on average across our fleet of more nearly 800 school districts and contractors

• Average school bus fleet has cut miles in April from 110,000 to 11,000 between 2019 and 2020

• Our customers averaged seven hours using our software in April despite school closures, totaling approximately 5,400 hours nationwide.

School districts across the country are leveraging Here Comes The Bus to support their drivers and their communities as they strive to perform a new set of essential functions associated with the COVID-19 school closures.

We were proud to be featured alongside our customer, Stanly Public Schools, on a national newscast that demonstrated how our technology can keep people safe during this challenging situation.

CNN is one of many media outlets that have covered how our technology is supporting school districts during the pandemic.

The Stanly school system has approximately 8,400 students, with 62 percent of them receiving free or reduced lunch, according to a local media report.

The high demand put no less than Superintendent Jeff James, PhD, behind the wheel of one of the district’s buses to help deliver meals.

“It’s been a great tool for us to use for safety all the way around and of course it proved to be a great tool for making sure we’re feeding students,” James told CNN, referring to the Here Comes The Bus app.

The Power of Real-Time Tracking and Alerts on a National Scale

While a handful of our customers have been featured on the news for their heroic efforts to keep buses rolling to serve students, we know many others have been toiling quietly yet tirelessly.

While Here Comes The Bus may appear to most casual users similar to a ride-share experience, it’s simple interface and intuitive interface are the result of nearly two decades worth of software engineering.

The foundational software behind the award-winning school bus tracking app is designed to provide a robust tool for schools and other transportation officials to transform their fleets into a connected network of smarter, safer and more efficient vehicles.

School districts have invested in our technology long before the advent and proliferation of Here Comes The Bus because it helps them save money and better protect student passengers.

During this pandemic, our internal analytics tell a powerful story about how many student transportation professionals are far from the safety of their homes. A few items stand out.

In April 2019, our average student transportation customer logged 110,000 miles. That number fell to 11,000 in April 2020.

Like any average, a few outliers can skew the average. In this case, we believe the outliers are school districts, and in this case individual vehicles and drivers, are working hard to deliver meals and homework while so many of us shelter safely at home.

Our data shows several of our customers specializing in student transportation have vehicles that are accumulating significant mileage despite the COVID-19 school closures.

Of the approximately 34,000 vehicles equipped with our Here Comes The Bus license, roughly 475 logged at least 1,000 miles in April, the first full month of the national school closures, compared to 25,000 vehicles that logged at least 1,000 miles in February, the last full month before the pandemic.

But vehicles don’t drive themselves, not yet anyway.

We salute every one of those nearly 500 drivers who are on the roads serving their communities — delivering meals to students and sometimes their families as well as homework and setting up mobile Wi-Fi hot spots to connect under-served communities.

While we rarely know where a person becomes infected with COVID-19, we know there are a growing number of school bus drivers who’ve been killed by the disease. The National School Transportation Association is lobbying for school bus drivers to be labeled as essential employees during the pandemic, making them eligible for federal hazard pay.

A nationwide tool innovating to improve the school bus experience

From North Carolina and Georgia to Minnesota and California, some of the largest school districts in North America are using Here Comes The Bus to connect with parents during this unprecedented challenge. Launched in 2015 to help families connect with their child’s daily school bus experience, the app has grown to more than 2 million registered users with approximately 500,000 daily users before the pandemic struck.

Even now, with nearly every school in North America closed for the remainder of the school year, the app continues to be used to track meal and homework deliveries. Our data shows more than 90 districts had more than 100 app users log on for at least six minutes in April.

From Sumner County Schools outside of Nashville, Tennessee to Elk Grove Unified School District in Sacramento, California, more than 50,000 app users continue to log on to track their school bus.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina, Cobb County Schools outside of Atlanta and Prince George County Schools outside of Washington, D.C. are among more than approximately 150 districts and contractors who are using Here Comes The Bus and its underlying fleet intelligence technology to more effectively serve their communities.

More than 300 districts and contractors driving more than 30,000 buses are using Here Comes The Bus to better serve families and our fleet intelligence software to create safer, more connected and more efficient fleets.