Our school corporation started using this app approximately three years ago, when my son was a 6th grader, and it’s been such a wonderful app for this mom. As a mom (and dad) leaving before my son gets on the bus, it allows me a small peace of mind, knowing that our son can see the bus on the map, and get notifications when the bus is near, so he can stay in the house until he needs to go outside, and get on the bus. We live out in the county, so it was unsettling to leave my son at home, standing outside to wait on the bus alone. We downloaded the app to my son’s phone as well as mine, so my son will get the notification when the bus is just down the road, we can also see where the bus is on the map, which is what my son prefers to keep tabs on where the driver is. We can set notifications as close or as far out as we want, and we have the notification on close so my son can just walk out the door. Gone are the days of waiting at the window and watching for the bus OR standing outside in the inclement weather. The IT staff at the here comes the bus are also very helpful and respond promptly, if your app is not working correctly. We are very grateful our corporation picked up this app, it’s been a life saver for our family in terms of getting our child on the bus without us being home, and gives this mom a peace of mind that my son is safe waiting at home for the bus.
This is app is Great! Before I heard about it I was sending the kids down to the end of driveway 10-15 early in the summer and 5 min early in winter so they wouldn't freeze to death but the 5 min window wasn't enough sometimes they would miss it and then I would have to drop them. Then I heard about this bus app and boy was I excited!! Now I have it timed perfect to where I let them walk down the drive(I have a 900 ft drive, cause we live in a farm in the country) and by time they get to the end the bus is pulling up- perfect! Now don't have to worry about someone snatching them(not that I worry about that where I live) but never know? Better safe than sorry and they don't freeze waiting on it! Excellent app, there's only 1 day to where it didn't work but I believe it was a setting in my phone so gets 5 stars in my book the alerts don't work or are off sometimes but I don't worry about those anyway as ling as I can see the bus in motion and know where it's at is good enough for me! If you have kids that get on a bus YOU NEED THIS APP!
We’ve been using this app since the start of last school year and they have done little to nothing about being a consistent, reliable source for the location of your child. This year, so far, they haven’t gotten my child’s bus substitutions nor location correct. We live in a suburb, school dismissed 30 minutes ago, and the bus our son is supposedly on is currently showing clear across the major city lines at a different elementary school. We frequently have to call the school itself to get a location on our child. We receive notifications about the substitution for his morning bus almost 2 hours after school started. You call support to fix the issue and it’s good for a couple weeks at best. We have often seen the location of his bus in the middle of Lake Norman. In. The. Lake. A huge body of water. When the app works, it’s a godsend and 5 stars all day. The app seldomly meets the bare minimum of what any responsible parent would deem acceptable, sadly. It’s trash. I hope our school system dumps the support and promotion of this app and finds something more reliable. More reliable is a low bar considering how poorly they execute their purpose. Oh, I’m sure they are probably making a mint having their broken app installed on our phones. What information are they collecting off us that they can justify such a poor performance? I WOULD HAVE A BETTER SENSE OF MY CHILD’S LOCATION IF I THREW A BAG OF CHICKEN BONES ONTO MY PATIO.
Update on previous review. This app suddenly stopped working in Jan. 2023. It says Bus n/a not in service. I have called multiple times and put in service requests. One time I talked to someone and they said they can see the bus and let me know where it is. It was never fixed. Fast forward I called and left a message on Sept. 16th. They never returned my call. I called today and got someone. They said my daughter is not assigned a bus which is not true. They told me to call my district’s transportation department. I have previously talked to transportation and they show that the bus is in synovia ( which is here comes the bus server, I think or where the district pays the billing). Transportation does not understand why here comes the bus can’t see it. I am so tired of dealing with this. My daughter is a special needs student and I feel that they do not care about my concerns. Especially since I have been dealing with this for 10 months now. There also has never been an explanation as why it just stopped working. I have also signed out and deleted the app and then reinstalled to see if it would help and it didn’t. From what I understand it is only not working for some of the schools in the district, so they can’t say it the school district not entering in the route for the student. If I don’t get a response and resolution soon I will be looking into where I can go next to get this taken care of and working again.
The app is causing too many issues, and one day it will end up in a big security issue and a bigger problem at the hand to wake county or to schools. Not sure if the app owners realize that parents rely on this app for there kids safely return and sending home. Its just has one job and if it cannot do that one job what is the point of the app. It always buggy and most if time doesn’t work and when app works it give wrong data. The app, the transportation system and school system all are on different level and no one knows who is responsible and who has info or who to held accountable if such a critical app don't work. This app has always caused issues and so much confusion. So many ppl complain i know so many who does but u will go in same SOP where u will ask for data, etc, ..please fix the app to send bus data correct and on time. In this storm, where there is thunderstorms and lightning, kids had to walk alone as the app was all giving wrong info that bus has not even left school. And this is not first time but may be 100 times so far. Because of this ppl end up wasting and waiting for buss for hours. Such a waste of public money.. may be a better company can come up with a better more reliable solid app. I know it hurst but image a parent frustration when they have to deal with this in hot sun for hours.
The concept of this app is groundbreaking and very 21st-century. Using the GPS technology on board buses, one is able to see the exact location of the bus relative to your children at their bus stop. This is very helpful, and a great use of technology. However, technology needs all facets to work; if any part of the chain is unable to function, it will not help you or be very informative. What I have noticed about this app is that the real time GPS tracker is excellent. However, the email and app notifications that are sent that your child has been picked up or dropped off or are seriously delayed. This needs serious tweaking if you rely on the emails or notifications and are unable to be there with them live. Consider the working parent who is at the office and waiting to hear if their child was picked up or drop off- they would be waiting for up to an hour before receiving that notification or email. If the company can tweak this, the app will be perfect. All in all, a great partnership between school districts/parishes and software development companies. Good work guys- and please tweak it!
This app has been a godsend this entire school year! Everything was working nicely until the most recent update; all of my info (bus, school and bus stop icons) disappeared and I got a message saying the map info “wasn’t available” when I tried to adjust the notification radius. Everything was fine on the website, it was just the app that was screwy. I came here to see if anyone else was having this problem and just as I saw that it was mentioned in several other reviews, I got a Notification that my son’s bus was in the designated range. I checked the app and there were still no icons so I deleted it and immediately re-downloaded it. After I signed in, everything is working as expected! I bet if I had just logged out and logged back in, everything would have been fine too. Hopefully this can help other users and save you from unwarranted negative reviews!
This app works whenever if feels like it. Instead of the developers putting out a message that they are having problems, they instead make it look like you’re doing something wrong. I could not login to this app at all this morning, this usually happens sometimes but they mislead you on their error messages. Oh and this is the second time I’ve written a review within the hour because they deleted my comment on here and magically the app started working again even though it didn’t work after deleting and reinstalling. This thing is completely unreliable, honestly we need it now in this day and age because the buses never arrive at the time they are supposed to. They are either early or 25 minutes late. The route also changes in my area because we are all spaced out and the bus doesn’t stop at other stops if they know a kid isn’t getting picked up in that area… this is only okay when this app works so we know when to get to the stop. We can’t be having outages like this when the bus routes change from day to day. Also stop covering this up and deleting my reviews or I’ll let them on the BBB website.
I have three kids im school. One im kindergarten amd two im middle school. For my elementary school it work good till today. Waited at the bus stop watch the bus move around on the gps. Did not come to our stop. We took our child to the school. Then my middle school student are waiting at the stop because I noticed that same bus didn’t even come in our neighborhood to Pick students up is already at the middle school. I called transportation to ask what’s going on. I said my kindergartener never got picked up. We saw the bus on the gps while at the stop but never came. After she checked her end of the GPS it said it come to our stop. While going back and fourth with the people on transportation they said their GPS was correct. I asked so your GPS with the app aren’t the same ?!!. She said it was, that it depends if the driver checked off when they came to the stop. I honestly don’t understand how this app works. Since we were actually out there on time. I need the developers to contact our district transportation to make sure they Updating the info correctly!!!
I appreciate this app because i like to see when my child boards the bus & gets off the bus. The only thing i don’t like is that we’ve had plenty times when we couldn’t even see the bus on the app so we couldn’t track it and i hate when we can’t see it because that lets us know when the bus is near or when it isn’t or if it’s running behind because that way my child wouldn’t have to stand at the bus stop for too long just waiting and waiting especially if it’s cold outside. I hope they fix that because the app works best for us if we’re allowed to see/track the bus and it’s location every single time. I hate it when we have to guess what time to be at bus stop in hopes the bus comes on time or even if the bus comes at all. (We’ve had issues in the past before when the bus didn’t stop by at all and went past the stop, I’m assuming it was a sub bus driver) which is why I rely on this bus app to always be visible/able to track on the app.
This app helps out so much, especially with having five children at home with their buses showing up at different times at different bus stops. It gives me the opportunity to download the app on each kids phones and they can also track where the bus is. I can also meet my children at their bus stop when they are too early or on a late bus. Only thing is when students have a specialty bus, for example my daughter school bus never shows on the bus app because she rides a specialty bus because she attends a school outside of our school zone but the school is on the same county and the same city. Also, sometimes the bus the children are on is not even the bus that shows on the app. It will show another bus. If my kids didn’t have cell phones where I can track them I would think they were on the wrong bus because of the app. You can rely on the app to much because of that. But when it is right it helps out alot.
This is my first school year using this app. At the beginning, it seemed to work fine. Then slowly things started breaking down. First there were no sounds with the notifications. This caused us to miss the bus several times. Then the pop-up notifications for this app on my cell phone stopped working. Now the icons showing the bus stop and school aren’t changing from red to green to let me know the kids have arrived. I can still see the movements of the bus if I keep the app open. I am using an iPhone 8. I have reset the app as well as my phone. Nothing seems to work. I have checked the notifications settings in the app as well as in my phone. All are set correctly. I have 3 children who ride 3 different busses to 3 different schools so the problem can’t be the drivers since it worked fine for the first few days of school. I have attempted to contact the developer and the website has no clickable links to allow me to fill out their “form” for support. I was excited when I had heard about this app. It is a terrific idea, however the actual app is not as user friendly as it could be and is extremely unreliable.
That is the way I feel about this app! It tells me/us when the bus will be at the bus stop which saves us time and lots of worrying! My son is the only person at his bus stop so I cannot always tell if we have missed the bus or not. We drive him to the bus stop since there are no sidewalks in our development on our side of the street. With this apps it tells us what time the bus will be at the stop. With the traffic the way it is were we live it’s extremely helpful. A Godsend! Plus it was easy to install. You just need your child school district transportation number. Your child ‘s student id number and where do you want the information to be sent to your cell phone, tablet, or computer. It can even call you for a reminder. This App is Great! It removes the guess work of if you missed the bus or not. Monica P. Cary, NC
When it’s working, it’s a very wonderful app. However, it’s very buggy and clunky and stops working or does goofy things frequently. Lately for some reason, it has my son riding the later bus so I get notifications an hour after he’s already been at school. I don’t get it, it was correct all year. This morning, he has somehow been applied to a bus in a completely different school zone with a completely different bus number. The app crashes, the GPS gets stuck, setting the notification rules don’t fully work - like a feature that was half cocked and never finished. I’ve only ever had one bus driver use the scan student option and only about half the time, so my little marker is always red. Getting support from them is a total joke. Maybe they’ll respond to your inquiry when your child graduates, and the information is form and only relevant as often as their app works. I’ll very much be happy when my son graduates or starts driving and I can be done with this app for the rest of my life.
We’ve used this app for four years. This year has been the worst. In prior years the app worked with minimal issues; however, this year my child’s bus has not been updated at all. We’re in our 3rd week of school and his bus status reads “Not in service”. The first day of school we missed the bus because there was a substitute bus that we were never told about. This bus came 30 minutes prior to our scheduled pick up time. This may have been a communication mishap with the school system; however, in prior years, a substitute would have been notified on the app. Three weeks into the school year, we are still on the substitute bus, but the bus has not been updated on the app. I’ve called the school system twice and was told this is an app issue. I’ve called Here Comes the Bus three times and left two messages. There Voicemail says all calls will be returned within 24 hours…I have not received one phone call nor a resolution. What’s the point in having this app if it’s not providing the information needed?
I’ve deleted the app and reinstalled. I’ve re registered my kids for the new school year. The map is always blank. It goes to a random location 15-20 minutes from our school/home. There’s no yellow arrow or school icon on the map. When it did work (randomly) last year, it would notify me that the bus had arrived after it left the bus stop. It was only useful for the notification that the bus arrived at school. Because I have 4 kids, I received 4 text messages and 4 emails every time it decided to work and let me know the bus had arrived. I never saw a place to get only 1 notification per family/school/bus route. Today it was 23 degrees and our normal wait time of 10-15 minutes was 45 minutes by the time all parents (who’s apps didn’t work) were able to contact the transportation department of our county to find out our bus was having mechanical problems. No notice from the app at all. Yes, we started investigating the delay after about 20-30 minutes. For those who care, the bus finally arrived at our bus stop 1 hour and 35 minutes late after the parents decided to drive kids themselves.
This app was working well - I would get real time alerts and could see where the bus was so my son could get out to the bus stop on time. There have been times over the last year and a half that our district has used the app that it would freeze up and the bus location would be stuck in one place for an extended period of time, but that usually fixed itself. Sometimes I had to delete the app and reinstall and sign in. Recently the app is basically garbage for me. I no longer receive notifications when the bus is in the 2 mile radius. I open the app and the bus location is at the transportation center for an hour, or it’s at another location stuck. Last week I contacted help/support and someone responded a day later. I replied and sent a screenshot of my map and what problems I was experiencing but I haven’t heard back - not even “we’re working on it.” I just deleted my account and the app.
I’ve been using this app for over two years. For the past years it’s been working good. But now I’m just done. At the beginning of the year it worked like it should. But then no bus icon showed up. So I went outside at 7:30am. The bus didn’t show up till 8:40. An hour late. And it was a substitute which I was unaware of. It has just been a rotation of my original bus and the substitute bus. Then one day the bus app actually showed a bus. I watched the bus app and it never picked me up. So my mom called transportation. They said they split the route and they accidentally assigned my area the wrong one and they weren’t able to change it. Great. So I was an hour late to school that day. Yesterday I had to wait for an hour outside again in 26 degrees. I’m just frustrated. I never know what bus it is going to be and neither do the bus drivers. Let’s not forget that sometimes my bus stop icon and radius don’t show up. Before this app was made I at least knew when my bus would show up. But now I never know.
As a person who uses this app to know where my school bus is, there have been many situations where the bus wouldn’t move on the app. During these situations I was unsure when to go out to the bus stop, because I didn’t really know where my bus was. Usually, in these situations I just go out to the bus stop and hope that the bus will come. Although one time I just assumed that the bus was very late, since my bus tends to be late sometimes and just waited until it moved on the app (which never did). I ended up missing the bus because my bus had already came to the bus stop, but I wasn’t there of course. I feel like because of the fact that this happens so much, I can’t rely on this app anymore. Especially because my bus doesn’t have a certain time that it usually comes. Sometimes it’s early, sometimes late, so I can’t ever expect for it to come a certain time. I do think that this app would be really helpful if it didn’t have problems like this. Thank you for reading!!
As a highschooler this app saves a ton of time waiting around at the stop and lets me see if I’ve missed the bus or not so I don’t waste more time at the stop instead of walking to school. I’m just not sure how I feel about the radius notifications. If my neighborhood was bigger and the stops were further apart it would work smoothly but I have at least 5 stops less then 1/2 a mile away. My only option is to make the bubble smaller and that means I have less time to get out the door so, kinda defeats the purpose. I’d love to see an option to set a point the bus has to cross before I get a notification, or a set road to get notifications for when the bus arrives on that street. Definitely good for elementary students and parents who walk to the bus with them and keep them company, but I don’t personally like staying there for 5 extra minutes because the notification radius is kind of impractical for suburban areas
This app definitely has some bugs which I’m sure will be fixed soon! For example, for half of the last school year, my kids bus was in Jacksonville, Florida (spoiler: we don’t live in Florida). That aside, this app is so incredibly helpful, especially if you work away from home. It’s also really helpful if the bus is running late or the weather is bad and you need to track the bus to meet your kid at their stop. I would imagine it’s also good for teachers to be able to see if a bus is late in the morning (they probably keep up with that other ways). I’m really glad our school system uses it and would encourage others to do the same!! I don’t want to helicopter parent, but having this app definitely helps put my mind at ease just a little!
Last year this app worked most of the time. This school year however most days it does not work! Almost every morning when I open the app I get the message bus information not available. Then on some mornings about 20 or 30 min after the bus has arrived I’ll get a message that has updated bus info on it, but the bus icon still does not appear on map. This app is most important to me for use in the AM so I know when to send my kids to the bus stop on cold rainy days. But when the app is not working they either end up waiting in bad weather for unnecessary amounts of time, or I have to get my baby dressed and put all my kids in the car so I can drive my bus riders to the stop and wait with them so there not being snowed on or drenched with cold rain. This app is suppose to make bus riding easier, but even after weekly, sometimes daily reports to customer service there has been no improvement to this apps ability to accurately display bus location for the AM route. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE fix this problem!!!!!!
This is something I always wished we had and it’s like a dream come true. Busses come early or late and you never have an idea if you’ve missed it or it’s running behind. This app works for me most of the time and when it does it’s amazing. It definitely helps to know the location of my child’s bus however I keep running into a problem where it appears the bus isn’t moving. I’m assuming it’s broken down then I wonder if it’s my phone so I close the app completely and reopen it to see the bus is still in the same location. Then it jumps from what looked like two miles away to into our radius! So we scramble to get to the stop ASAP. Living in. Cold climate we appreciate having an app that helps us reduce being out in the elements. Hopefully all the bugs can get fixed so it runs a bit smoother.
The location of the bus is not updated in real time. I set up the app to notify me when the bus is 2 miles away. I walked outside as soon as I received the alert but not 1 minute later, I got another alert saying the bus had arrived before I even reached the stop. I continued to walk to the stop anyway because I thought there’s no way the bus drove two miles in less than a minute. I reached the stop and I wait another 7 or 8 mins. I then come to the conclusion that maybe the time was a few minutes off and I missed the bus. I started to panic. I started to run back to my apartment to call the school and in the distance, I hear the school bus pulling up. I started running back to the bus stop as fast as I good but the bus pulled off with my 5 year old still inside. They took her back to the school. I will never depend on this app again.
Before I found out about this app my child was having to wait outside for about 30 minutes because his bus was never on time. He either had a different bus driver all the time, or a different bus number all together. This has been happening since he started High School. It became so frustrating. But with this app, it has changed EVERYTHING. The notifications are off a little when it comes to letting me know when the bus is in his radius. But I never look at that anyway. As long as I see his bus physically moving on the map, that’s all that matters. I rarely have issues with bugs on the app, thank goodness. Now my son doesn’t have to wait in the heat, cold or rain for a long periods of time. He can be outside 1-2 minutes before the bus pulls up. Such a great app!!!!
The app let’s me know when the bus arrives in the morning for one child but not my other child. Because the driver does not come at the same time every day it’s easy to miss the bus unless they’re at the stop very early. I’ve tried changing the radius to be alerted earlier- I can’t change it for one child because his bus stop isn’t listed on his account and neither the website or app allows me to change this. I can change the radius for my other child but I still am never alerted for his bus in the morning. For the afternoons I have the same issue except vice versa: the kid that does not receive an alert in the morning gets an alert in the afternoon. The kid who does get an alert in the morning does not get one in the afternoon. Again, neither the website or the app allows me list a bus stop for one of my children or change the radius notifications. And the child who does have a bus stop listed does not receive the alert at adequate times even though I have changed the bus radius.
This is a good app for what it is intended for, to give a general idea on where the bus is. It shouldn't be used to determine when you should meet the bus (I wouldn't even think of doing that). Helpful to us to know when her bus is coming since several others pick up at the same location around the same time (express stop). Very cool knowing when the bus is near her express drop off at home, gives me an idea on when to expect her to let me know she is home since she has a mile walk to the house. Would LOVE notifications sent via text instead of email... overall this is a cool app!! *** updated: you do get a direct bus update if you have the actual app and don't just use through PWCS. Love this app!***
I was very excited when I learned that an app like this existed! My kids pickup/drop off is about a 3 minute walk from our house. I was really hoping this app would give me a 5 minute heads up so I could send the kids out the door at an appropriate time so they didn't have to stand in the freezing cold for so long. Unfortunately the max distance you can set the notifications for is 1 mile. By the time my phone dings with the notification, the bus is there within less than a minute. I want to know when the bus is almost here when my kids get off the bus as well. Again, the notifications don't give a good enough heads up. I wish the radius could be set at 2 miles. Also, often times I will get the notification on my phone once the bus has already dropped them off. I would love of this app allowed for a greater radius and was more accurate with notifications.
The app is beyond glitchy (until I finally shut off notifications, it was screeching about radius an hour early, every day, for my daughter . Their “help” section reads like it was written by a condescending tween with anger issues. You’ll never get any type of actual help from these people if the app isn’t functioning properly. I assure you, they don’t care. It did work briefly, sorta. Then my son missed his bus, even though the app showed his bus ten minutes away. My daughter’s bus number would pop up, but they have no idea where her bus is? 😂 Her pickup is an hour later than the notification from the app. Perhaps not every school district should utilize an app that isn’t intended or designed for districts that share busses between elementary, middle, high school, and early college. I’m sure the app developers/check cashers couldn’t care less. But don’t trust or rely on this as some sort of safety net. It’s not reliable.
It “works” but it’s not entirely helpful at this point. If I sit and stare at the map for 40 minutes and watch the bus icon all the way to the house....it’s great, but I don’t really need an app for that. When the bus hits my notification radius, I receive a SILENT notification that is a great little reminder the bus is here but again, if I’m stuck starring at my phone to catch the notification then I can just as easily be standing in the driveway. Why no sound with the notification? Also, my son is in kindergarten and at that age the bus won’t drop the kids if they can’t verify for sure that someone is home. Yesterday I was home but missed the drop notification (due to no sound of course) and the driver didn’t drop my son. Once the bus passes the drop point, it simply vanishes from the map all together. So now I have no kid and a missing bus!
Pros: The concept is great! UI is simple and easy. Nice getting notifications of when bus is in the area. It provides me a general idea of where the bus is located. Fortunately our driver is typically on schedule so we’ve learned to use this as a tool to help us. Cons: Using an iPhone 13 OS 15, I can no longer use the icons at the top of the Map view or the Menu icon. The actual arrival times do not display. The stop icons no longer change/update color when the bus has arrived. The push notifications seem to work best in the morning vs afternoon I’m not notified until bus is at the stop. I’ve found if I’m having major issues with things not working (beginning of school year, using a new device, etc) best to uninstall and reinstall the app. However this does not resolve all issues.
Had this for a month and half, it’s very helpful since I have an autistic son and many kids to look after. App lets you know if it’s within the radius you set up and when a student has scan their bus card. It’s inaccurate when the bus is still picking up other kids or outside the house, I saw on the map that it was still in other neighborhoods but really the bus was in front of my house waiting and eventually left. Then few weeks ago it started glitching, making it unable to see where the bus is. I’m sure they fix that by now but I wouldn’t know because I’m unable to login into my account. Been sending request password change but received nothing through the email I set up with. Please fix this, there’s a total of 6 kids I look after and need to get ready every morning.
It’s nice to be able to track your child’s bus. Things that interrupt cell service will cause lags in the app, but that’s not really the app’s fault. Also, my child’s bus broke down on a different street in our neighborhood last school year and I could see the bus had stopped moving on the map, but I never received a notification about what was happening. I’m sure our bus driver was preoccupied with making arrangements to get the kids to school so she’s not going to be on an app giving updates, but the notifications feature is only going to work if you actually put them in/update it when something happens. So maybe it’s not as user friendly on the bus end. Overall, I’m glad our school system started using this, it definitely is helpful.
Our school district promoted this app and we signed up for it. Last year it worked as promised, and we appreciated having it. This year about a week into the new school year, the district changed our child’s bus route home. I have tried to contact the company every way that I know how, through their contact link, through the email address they provide on the parent introduction page, and using another email address the district provided, trying to get them to update the afternoon alerts. No one has replied, no one has fixed the problem. I’m continuing to get inaccurate alert information. If I don’t hear back from them in another week or so, I will delete the app. Is anyone from Synovia Solutions reading these reviews?
HCTB feels like living in the future. It is now a crucial part of our morning - how much I hurry my kids is directly related to how close the bus is. Being able to see when the bus leaves its depot and when it is getting close to the house is a godsend for getting the kids out on time, and we have only missed the bus maybe twice in the 2 years we have been using the app! (And if you have kids who are not morning people you’ll understand how remarkable that is). There have been a few issues where the drivers’ devices have stopped transmitting so the bus position does not get updated accurately, but that has only occurred a handful of times in 2 years.
Update. The app support link links to Synovia but the support page is not found. No support for you ! Update. Object reference not set to an instance of an object. I guess just another day we are not able to track the bus. Update. I guess it is on the school but one child gets tracking and the other mostly does not. And today at 8:50 I received the alert that the bus entered the area at 7:02 Another day another false alert. School not even over and the kid’ll be home momentarily. Really ? Another day another false alert. School has not even ended and I am getting an alert my student will be home momentarily. And yes I have set the alert notification radius to almost zero. And now it has alerted, well I am not going to get another one until the next route tomorrow. Who knows if there is a problem with the bus. Back to the old days and just hope and pray my child gets home. The twisty route our bus takes has the bus entering the geofencing well before it is actually anywhere near us, like today in the afternoon when it was on the way back to the school after some run, before school was even let out. And if you set it for the last minute the bus is 30 seconds out and a 4 minute walk from the house. Nice idea. Could use some refinement.
No more having to wait and wonder where the bus is when the bus is late or delayed. The app even updated to tell me that my son had a substitute driver with a different bus, and that the bus was running an hour late due to the change. So I was able to quickly change my plans to drop him off at the school so that I could get to work on time. The app has a radius that you can set up to be notified when the bus gets within a certain distance of your house, which is incredibly helpful, I have ours set up to notify me when the bus enters the neighborhood, which gives me about a minute window to make sure that he has his book bag and is waiting for the bus by the front door.
My 8 year old daughter has only been in school for one week and this app worked for a total of 2 days! The last two days the app states that the bus my child rides is out of service which is obviously false as I have put her on and picked her up from it. Last week I did not receive any notifications nor was I able to track the location of the bus after the first two days. Customer service is a joke via phone or through the app. With the app the request never goes through and when calling the voice recording tells you to stay on the line to speak with someone, rings three times, then forwards you to a voicemail. The voice messages are either not monitored or simply ignored because you will not receive a call back regarding your concerns! Us parents would have been better off never being introduced to this app!
Our school system started using this app a few days ago. It's the app I'd hoped to have a few years ago. It shows me where my kids' buses are, real-time, both before and after they get on. I can tell if a bus will be late in the a.m. and opt to take my child to school. Likewise, in the p.m. if the bus is late getting to the school, I know that as well. I hope that if the buses are stuck in traffic or behind an accident later, I'll KNOW that now, and see where they are. It will give me options. If your school system uses this, download it. Plus, it's oddly mesmerizing to watch the bus arrow drive the route =)
This app is a wonderful tool for helping us know exactly when the bus is arriving so we can be ready to quickly get on/off. Especially since we use special education bussing and so arrival times are not always the same, it enables us to not have a difficult time waiting, rather we can time getting ready and be able to meet the bus as soon as it arrives. The app has given us trouble from time to time, either showing the wrong bus for our child or the app itself logging out unexpectedly and then saying it is unavailable upon logging in again. Overall, it’s an excellent tool. It would be nice to allow the ability to cancel the bus stop through the app, for those of us using special ed busses.
So happy I don’t have to guess when the bus is coming.
Great app when it’s working. Sometimes there are issues with buses not being tracked but it may may a school system issue and not an app issue. For 4 years I dealt with buses not arriving on time and not knowing if it came early or was late. With the app, I can now see and track the location of the bus and know when it’s arriving. I love that there are notification settings to let me know when it is within a certain radius of our stop. It also seems that since our school system started using the app, the buses are much more reliable, perhaps because of the accountability. Would give it 5 stars if it had a way to notify us of the length of delays when we have them.
This is a good app for helping me track my kids’ buses, however the lag time is sometimes significant. I do like that I can set up to track my stepchildrens’ bus in another school district and get notifications on their bus as well. Again, it’s the lag time on the GPS that is significant on this app. I wish it was better or they would improve it. I have been using this app for 3 years now and it only seems to have gotten worse. Also, if I uncheck certain types of notifications for some of my children, that doesn’t work, I still get the same notification after notification after I have continuously removed that notification. If the developers could improve that, then I would have no problem giving this app a 5 star rating.
I have heard about this app and I was looking forward to using it at the start of this school year. The first week it showed me where the bus was on a map and when it arrived at my child’s school and when it departed. School started August 1st and it’s now the middle of September and the only thing I get from the app is when my child’s school bus is in the stop radius. It doesn’t show me where exactly my child’s school bus is at on a map or even the correct bus number anymore. This is disappointing seeing as how the app prides itself on monitoring where the bus is at all times. I have emailed twice now every time I have a problem with the app and I have only gotten 1 response. I only keep the app so I know when the bus is in the stop radius (which is 2 miles). I how these issues get fixed soon!
Previously I gave the app one star because none of my data would show except the radius. Now I’m bumping it up to three. Why you ask? Because when the app actually *works* it’s a pretty good app. I can stay inside a little longer while also knowing where my bus is at. No paranoia that I missed it or me waiting outside for longer than I need to be. Keyword in the previous sentence is works because the app almost never does. It’s a huge hit or miss. Sometimes the app works perfectly and is synced up with the bus. Other times the bus is nowhere to be found and you’re stuck waiting outside for more than you need to. Also notice how almost all of the good 4/5 star reviews were made years ago
Great real time mapping function, not so much with anything else so far
I was really excited about our school district using this app this year! What a great resource for parents if it works! it was harder than I expected to get my hands on my children's student ID to set up the account so I think the school districts could help more there. Once the account was set up the app is not the most intuitive to use. Day 1 went great and we really appreciated the real-time mapping function especially since our bus was nine minutes late. It was simply reassuring on a day packed with jitters already. I do wish that notifications could come before the bus arrives but this might be more helpful when there is a major glitch in the schedule?
I appreciate the concept of this app. When my child is riding their normal bus, it is on the map and I can follow it which is especially great on cold days. I’m giving four stars because my notification radius constantly changes. When that happens, it will notify me way early when the bus is in range even though it is not close. That made for an exciting beginning of the year..! I have to go in about every week and change the radius back where I want it and then all is well for those few days. Also, of course, if your child is having a sub bus for any reason and riding a different bus, it will not show up, thus looking like the bus is not coming at all. So, neat app but don’t put your complete faith in it by any means!
Last year, a good portion of the time, this app was not accurate. Not even close. One problem is the app is tied to the bus number and not the route number. So if the bus is switched out for any reason and a substitute bus is used, you can’t track the bus that is being used for the route. Even when the “correct” bus is on the route, often the map would show the bus was still at the bus depot or at a school somewhere - a couple of times, it even showed the bus was out on a highway going the opposite direction - only to see the bus coming down the street to the bus stop. But, because our bus drivers were so habitually late, there was no way of knowing if the bus was actually anywhere near the bus stop or not - no matter what the map showed. I eventually just stopped using the app altogether.
So not even two weeks into school I was saying something like this was needed. I actually ordered a GPS tracker which I planned to put in my child's backpack. The announcement about this app for our school just came out yesterday. I immediately downloaded it, registered, added my child, and set up notification radii. It worked beautifully this morning and this afternoon. I can see where setting it up may not be the most user intuitive, but no problems here for the gadget and electronic geek. I hope it continues to work. I have cancelled the GPS tracker order and subscription service! ***update*** Still works great 90% of the time. An audible radius alarm would make it even better!
This app is great conceptually but it’s buggy and confusing. It’s clear they never tested the login page with a third party password manager like LastPass- the credentials are pasted into the wrong fields, and the keyboard gets screwed up and you can’t fix the school district ID. The user experience is also bad- the map opens on a location in my general area but not where either we are or where my kids go to school. Labels on the map are technically correct but in very strange locations. The app fails in strange ways when the server load is high- this is the first day of school and it’s a new app for our district and some actions show results 20-30 seconds after you perform them, which makes figuring out a confusing app even harder. I’m shocked that an app with this many flaws has so many great reviews.
This app would be great if I could use it. My son rides the bus twice a day. At his school they have the normal bus route and an activity schedule bus route. Out of 10 bus rides, my son is on the activity bus 8 times. That means I can only use this app 2 times a week because there is no way to add this other bus route/stop to his name. I have contacted the school about this and they can’t either. As soon as the school told us about this app I signed up. I have had issues where my son has waited in negative temps because his bus sometimes comes early. So he needs to be there waiting incase it does, except then it sometimes also comes late. Like I said, this app has potential and I am thankful for the 2 times a week I get to use it. I really hope they figure out a way to add on a second bus option.
**NOTICE: In order to use the app, your school district must have a contract with Synovia Solutions and make Here Comes the Bus® and/or Student Ridership available to parents. Please contact your school district or visit www.herecomesthebus.com for more information.** Here Comes the Bus is an easy-to-use app that gives you the real-time location of your child’s bus, and alerts you when the bus is near. With Here Comes the Bus, your children will get to the bus stop not a minute too early – or a minute too late. And with Student Ridership, you’ll not only know your child got on the right bus at the right time, but that they got off the bus at the right stop. All of this equals safety for your children, and peace of mind for you. KEY FEATURES: Find your bus quickly and easily See the exact location of your child’s school bus using your own customizable map. Receive alerts via push notification -Be notified when the bus is within 2 miles of your stop, has a schedule change, and more -Receive notifications when your child gets on/off the bus, including the bus number, location and time Access arrival & departure info Confirm your child’s bus has arrived at the bus stop and at school, both before and after school. Track all of your children Have children that ride different buses? See each child's bus information within one account. App and notifications in three languages The app and notifications are available in English, Spanish and French. Know your privacy is protected Parents must obtain a private ID number, which grants access to their child’s bus only.
