Teno’s new Bus Tracker feature ensures students’ safety and security

Parents of school-going children have always been apprehensive about entrusting school bus drivers with their kids’ daily commute to school. A 2019 study found that a high number of traffic rule violations by bus drivers constantly kept parents on edge regarding the safety of their children. The stream of negative and disturbing news on TV and newspapers causes parents to become hysterical if their children are even slightly late to arrive home from their school. From a school’s perspective, accidents or other school bus-related issues can dent their reputation and public perception. To address this issue, Teno, India’s premier school management mobile application, has added a bus tracking feature to its app.

The real-time tracker enables teachers and parents to monitor the progress of a bus while learners travel from home to school or vice versa. On the app, parents can view live data about the route currently being traversed by a school bus and the real-time speed of the vehicle. They will know if the bus breaks down midway and needs repairs. Additionally, the app will show the Expected Time of Arrival (ETA) for an ongoing bus ride so that parents can guesstimate by when their child will make it to school or back home once they’ve boarded the school bus.

In addition to bus tracking, the feature also simplifies transport management for parents and institutes. For instance, drivers, through the app installed on their phones, can notify parents when they commence a trip, letting them know when the bus will reach their nearest stop. Apart from that, the tracking feature also lets school admins approve new routes so that bus stops and pickups are within reasonable distance for all learners. Another way in which the tracking feature aids commute management is by enabling the transportation admins in schools to view the current status of buses in use, information regarding various routes, and the starting and ending points of an ongoing or future commute.

The app makes it mandatory for drivers to submit their government-approved IDs initially to ensure accountability at their end. The bus tracking feature ensures student safety and security through transparency and visibility during bus commutes, and through a continuous stream of communication that links bus drivers, parents, students, and school authorities.

In line with the communication theme, the app also enables parents to know about their child’s attendance record in lectures. Once they open Teno, parents will be able to see how many online and offline lectures their child has attended over an academic year. In today’s alternating online-offline hybrid schooling culture, this feature is expected to make it easier for parents to keep tabs on their child’s progress.

Additionally, parents and teachers can communicate privately through the app too. Teachers can inform parents about their child’s behavior, class participation, and academic performance through Teno-enabled chatting. Apart from that, they can share media files and reports with parents as quantitative evidence of their child’s learning and development. Most of Teno’s features revolve around sound communication between parents and teachers.

Jeenal Ganatra, Sr. Manager – Marketing & Product, Teno, commented on the new feature, “The basis of student safety during school bus commutes is communication. With the new bus tracking feature, Teno can quell the worries of parents regarding their children’s safety through a dynamic transfer of information. Student safety was one of our main priorities while developing Teno, and this new feature helps us meet some of our safety-based objectives.”