Skip to main content

South Valley Riverton Journal

Common busing issues resolved with tracking app

Feb 03, 2025 01:46PM ● By Jet Burnham

Each Jordan District bus is equipped with a GPS tracker which allows parents to receive notifications when their child’s bus is on the way. (Jet Burnham/City Journals)

Two-hundred ninety-one buses transport 18,726 Jordan School District students on 168 different routes each day. For the most part, the system runs smoothly. But sometimes a problem arises and kids and parents are left wondering, “Where’s the bus?”

Two years ago, JSD equipped all their buses with a geotracking device. Using the Zonar MyView app, parents can see the exact location of their child’s bus, which solves many of the problems bus users face.

West Jordan resident Joshua Workman relies on the app to get information when his child’s school bus is delayed.

“When the bus is a bit late coming or going, I can pull it up and see where it’s at for some reassurance that we didn’t miss it in the morning or that it’s still on its way back from the school,” he said.

District Transportation Director Paul Bergera said the app has drastically reduced the amount of calls the dispatch receives from worried parents.

“We used to have kids waiting outside in 20 degree weather for 30 minutes because their bus broke down, and so now the communication is much more fluid between the app and the families,” he said. “It really has helped settle some of the nerves when it comes to bussing, which can be pretty stressful.”

In the app, Workman sets zones for home and school and gets notifications when the bus is near the bus stop in the morning and when it is leaving the school in the afternoon.

“I’ll get a notification when it crosses into the home zone and I can tell my kids it’s time to rush out the door,” he said. “With three young kids, it can be easy to lose track of the minutes in the morning, so when I get a ping on my phone it helps me make sure they don’t miss the bus.” 

Bergera likes that multiple zones or geo fences can be created with customized text alerts to keep morning schedules running on time.

“So when the bus heads to the geo fence, it’ll say, ‘time to brush teeth,’ and they know they’ve got 10 minutes until the bus is coming to the stop, and then they’ll have another one set up in five minutes when it’s a little bit closer to the home, and once it gets there, they may have their message say, ‘backpack and out the door,’” he said.

Of the many benefits, Bergera said the app has been especially helpful to families of kids with special needs.

Jordan School District has 83 bus routes for students with special needs, most of whom are picked up at their homes. In the past, when the driver pulled up to the house, they would honk to alert the family they had arrived. If the child didn’t come out within two minutes, they would leave so they wouldn’t get behind schedule. With the app, parents can consistently have their child ready when the bus arrives.

And when those buses arrive at school, teachers can be ready to meet them.

 “I’d say one of the biggest success stories is for the school personnel who didn’t know when the buses were going to show up, so they would have to call,” Bergera said. “But now they’re all able to track them so they can stay with their kids in their class and then exit out and get students that may be coming in on the bus that’s running a little bit behind schedule, so that they’re not having to wait out there for that entire time.”

The MyView app can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play. Privacy protections require that to set up an account, parents must have the school access code (which is available through Jordan School District’s transportation webpage) and their child’s student number.λ