Sam Gurwitt Photo
Hamden’s school bus number 79 was driving East on Putnam Avenue Thursday afternoon. It looked like it would get to its stop on Augur Street by 3:08 p.m. — nine minutes ahead of schedule.
Dawn Albizu and Tom Ariola were also on Putnam Avenue, but they neither saw nor heard the bus. They knew where it was, where it was going, and when it would get there, however, because of a TV screen mounted above Albizu’s desk in the 60-Putnam district office building.
Albizu is the district’s business and transportation supervisor, and Ariola is chief operating officer.
That screen had come directly from First Student, which operates Hamden’s school buses. It arrived about two weeks ago, and is the first step in implementing a districtwide bus-tracking app that will allow parents to see the locations of their kids’ buses and know when they will likely arrive.
The app is called FirstView, and it is a service First Student is providing to the town for free. The district began to look into it about a year ago, said Ariola. He said that after a bus dropped off a kindergartener at the wrong stop in September, the district began to pursue it more aggressively.
FirstView allows both administrators and parents to track buses in the district. Each parent will get his or her own login for the app, which is free. Using that login, parents can see the location of their child’s bus, when it’s scheduled to arrive at each of its stops, and when the app estimates that it will actually arrive.
On the screen in the district’s central office, administrators can track every bus in Hamden. Parents, however, can only see their own child’s bus. Ariola said that there are three levels of security for the app, and Hamden opted for the highest level.
Six districts in Connecticut currently have FirstView fully implemented. Another nine (and now ten) are in the process of implementing it. New Haven, which has experienced significant school-bus chaos this year, is one of those districts.
Tom Ariola.
“It’s all about communication. Communication between the bus company, schools, and parents,” said Ariola. In addition to bus tracking, the app also provides a platform for service alerts if the district needs to contact parents about a bus.
Ariola and Albizu said that first, they have to train themselves and other central-office administrators in the use of the app. Next, they will install similar screens in each of Hamden’s schools. Come the end of January, they said they hope to have the app up and running on parent phones throughout the district.
Ariola said the app updates each bus’s location about every 5 – 15 seconds.
Dawn Albizu.
After a minute or so, bus 79 had arrived on Augur street. A few minutes later, it was on Dixwell Avenue, heading North.
Bus 79 had come from H. C. Wilcox Technical High School in Meriden. Though the school is outside the Hamden School District, Hamden is responsible for getting its students there. Most of the district’s buses were already done for the day, because it was a half day.
Bus 79 was supposed to arrive at Welton Street at 3:20, though it was scheduled to be there at 3:26. After a few minutes, however, it was still on Dixwell. The estimated time of arrival had been updated to 3:22.
“It probably got stuck in traffic,” said Albizu.
Finally, better news! I have a special needs child who has been taken to the wrong home, almost the wrong school. I pay $40 per month for a special needs tracking system, so I can track his bus currently.