Parents can monitor buses

Madison parents can monitor the location of their child’s school bus with a service that Spatial Net Inc. offers. The buses shown here are parked at the district’s transportation center at 217 Westchester Road. (Record photo / Gregg Parker)

MADISON – Starting in the 2015-2015 school year, parents can use today’s technology to track the route of their child’s school bus.

Madison City Schools is offering the new service to families that use the district’s bus system.

“Users can now sign up for a plan that enables them to better gauge arrival times for the school bus. The tracking works on both before- and after-school runs,” public relations manager John Peck said.

Spatial Net Inc., a Huntsville-based company, is offering the service for $25 per semester or $50 per year. Parents or guardians will have access to an online system that monitors the bus’ location.

Spatial Net’s service, named Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) School Tracking System, uses GPS tracking to give real-time locations of each bus. Users are given a secure log-in to track when their bus is nearing the stop. The maximum cost that a family will have to pay is $50 per semester or $100 per year.

Spatial Net will track the bus with respect to the designated stop and thus can limit a student’s wait time outside.

“We ask kids to be out at the stop at least five minutes before the scheduled pickup time,” Bobby Jackson said. Jackson works as Director of Transportation for Madison City Schools. “This service will give them the opportunity to know more precisely where the bus is on the route in case it is running a little late due to traffic or weather.”

For details about Spatial Net’s service, visit Madison City Schools’ website at madisoncity.k12.al.us, click “Transportation” in the options at the left and then click “Bus Tracking.” Or, the direct link to the site is tinyurl.com/q7nad4e.

To contact Spatial Net, call 256-428-1800 or email to spatialnet@knology.net.