Bus Fleet · school transportation and routing · Early access · opening gradually
The school bus fleet on one record — route assignments, driver eligibility, and a student roster kept in sync with the SIS.
Bus Fleet is one honest record of how a school moves its students. The routes and stops a school already runs, a ride assignment that says which route and stop a child boards at on which run, a driver-eligibility gate that records whether a driver is cleared to carry students, and vehicle telematics ingested as a record of what the fleet reports — all on the same student roster the rest of the platform uses, synced from the school’s SIS as the system of record. It reflects the transportation a school runs; it does not invent a live claim it cannot back.
- Route and ride assignments on the shared roster, synced from the SIS.
- A driver-eligibility gate records who is cleared to carry students, fail-closed.
- Telematics ingested as a record — reflected, not invented.
Bus Fleet is being opened up gradually. The transportation record -- routes and ride assignments, the driver-eligibility gate, the SIS roster sync, and telematics ingest -- is built, but this product surface is not yet generally available, and live bus tracking and parent notifications are still on the roadmap. This page describes what the record holds and how it behaves; the honest next step is to ask about early access.
What Bus Fleet is
At the centre is a plain idea: a school’s transportation is a record, and the record should sit on the same student list as everything else the school does. Bus Fleet holds four things — the routes and stops a school runs, the vehicles that run them, the drivers cleared to carry students, and each student’s ride assignment: which route and which stop, on the morning run or the afternoon run.
None of that invents a second copy of the student list. A ride assignment attaches to the shared roster, kept in sync from the school’s SIS as the system of record, so a student who leaves in the SIS leaves transport too. The record reasons over opaque route, stop, vehicle, and roster references — it does not need a child’s name to know that a seat is assigned.
Honestly, where the build is: the record layer — routes and ride assignments, the driver-eligibility gate, the SIS roster sync, and telematics ingest — is written and built. This product surface is early access and is opening gradually, and the two things buyers ask for first, live bus tracking and parent notifications, are on the roadmap and not yet shipped. Where something is a plan rather than an open door, this page says so.
Routes, stops, and ride assignments
Bus Fleet records the routes a school already runs and binds each student to the seat they actually ride — it is a record of assignments, not a routing solver that redraws them.
A route is an ordered list of stops
A route carries its stops in order, each with the time the bus is meant to be there, split across a morning run and an afternoon run. The record holds the route a school drives today; it does not claim to have drawn it.
A ride assignment binds a student to a stop
Each student’s ride assignment says which route and which stop they board at, on which run. It rides on the shared roster, so the assignment lives next to the rest of the student’s record rather than in a separate spreadsheet that drifts apart.
Vehicles are assigned, not tracked live
A vehicle is assigned to the route it runs, kept as a record. What the platform does not do — yet — is put that bus on a live moving map; live tracking is early access, and until it lands the record shows the assignment, not a fabricated position.
Not a route-optimization engine
To be plain about scope: Bus Fleet is the record of the routes a school runs, not an engine that redraws them to cut miles. It stores the assignment truthfully; it does not claim an optimization it does not perform.
Driver eligibility, checked and fail-closed
The most important thing a transportation record can answer is a hard one: is this driver cleared to carry students? Bus Fleet answers it with a fail-closed eligibility gate. A driver is cleared only when a current, valid clearance is on the record — the license and endorsements a school-bus driver needs, a current medical card, a recorded background-check clearance, and the training the school requires. Miss any of those, or let one lapse, and the gate reads not cleared. There is no ambiguous middle where a missing record quietly passes.
Be precise about what the gate does and does not do. It reads a recorded clearance and gates on it. It does not run the background check, and it does not issue a license or an endorsement — those are done by the agencies and providers that do them, and the platform records the result. It reads a screening; it does not perform one. The sensitive detail behind the yes/no — a medical record, the contents of a background check — is walled behind the school’s consent rules; the gate surfaces a cleared-or-not answer, not the file.
And a student’s side is consent-gated too: assigning a child to a driver and a route is a transport assignment on minors data, handled on the school’s strict privacy lane, not an open field anyone can edit.
One roster, synced from the SIS
Transportation is only as honest as the student list under it, so Bus Fleet does not keep its own. The roster it assigns rides against is the shared roster, kept in sync from the school’s SIS as the system of record. The sync reads from the SIS; it does not invent a parallel enrollment truth that a school then has to reconcile.
That has a plain consequence that matters for a child’s safety: when a student is withdrawn or moved in the SIS, that change flows to transport rather than leaving a stale ride assignment behind. The record follows enrollment; it does not fight it. And because the assignment reasons over an opaque roster reference, the routing and assignment side never needs a student’s name to do its job.
We are honest about the boundary this draws. Bus Fleet is a transportation record that complements the school’s system of record; it is not a certified replacement for the SIS, and it does not claim to be. The SIS owns enrollment; Bus Fleet owns how those students get to school and home.
Telematics, ingested honestly
Buses report data — an odometer reading, an engine status, a position ping from whatever telematics or AVL unit a fleet already runs. Bus Fleet ingests that as a record: it reflects what the fleet’s provider reports and stores it against the vehicle and route it belongs to. What it will never do is invent a position, an arrival time, or an on-time number that the fleet did not actually report. Reflected, not invented.
Two capabilities are honest-off, on purpose, until their backend lands. Live real-time bus tracking — a moving-vehicle map a school or a family could watch — is on the roadmap, not shipped; until it is real, the page shows the recorded assignment and never a fabricated live dot. And parent notifications — a “your child’s bus is a few minutes away” message — are on the roadmap too; the product does not send a notification it cannot back. When live tracking and notifications are real, they will be labelled real.
Money is honest-off here as well. There is no fare or fee collection on this surface and no card is charged — the product does not process payments yet. If a paid transportation service is ever offered, it will be a separate, consent-first decision, said plainly.
Consent-gated student transport, and honest about the data
A transport assignment is sensitive minors data. Where a child is picked up and where they are dropped off is exactly the kind of thing that has to be handled with care — more so for a student on special transportation or a student whose housing situation makes their stop confidential. So a student’s ride assignment is consent-gated and kept in our own private system, behind the school’s row-level security, on the same strict lane the platform uses for its most sensitive student rows.
It is never sold, and it is never made public. The roster it rides on is read from the SIS rather than resold or repackaged. Consent is the family’s to give and to withdraw. Staff see a transport assignment through the school’s student-data rules; the routing and assignment engine sees an opaque reference, not a name.
And to be plain about it: this is not a “we hold no data” claim. A ride assignment IS data — sensitive data. The honest claim is that it is private minors data, consent-gated, kept behind the school’s walls, never sold, and never carried into anything shared.
Common questions
Can I use Bus Fleet right now?
Not generally, yet. The transportation record — routes and ride assignments, the driver-eligibility gate, the SIS roster sync, and telematics ingest — is built, but this product surface is early access and is opening up gradually. Live bus tracking and parent notifications are still on the roadmap. Early access is the way to get in while it is being opened up.
Can parents track the bus live and get notifications?
Not yet, and the page does not pretend otherwise. Live real-time bus tracking — a moving-vehicle map — and parent bus-proximity notifications are on the roadmap and honest-off today. Until their backend lands, Bus Fleet shows the recorded route, vehicle, and ride assignment, never a fabricated live position, and it sends no notification it cannot back. When they are real, they will be labelled real.
Do you run the driver background check or issue the license?
No. The eligibility gate reads a recorded clearance and gates on it, fail-closed: a driver with no current, valid clearance — the required license and endorsements, a current medical card, a recorded background-check clearance, and the required training — is not cleared to carry students. The platform records the result of those checks; it does not perform the background check and does not issue a license or endorsement. It reads a screening; it does not run one.
Is Bus Fleet the system of record for enrollment?
No — the school’s SIS is. The roster Bus Fleet assigns rides against is kept in sync from the SIS as the system of record; the sync reads from it and does not invent a parallel enrollment truth. When a student is withdrawn or moved in the SIS, that flows to transport rather than leaving a stale ride behind. Bus Fleet complements the SIS; it is not a certified replacement for it.
Does it optimize or redraw our routes?
No, and it does not claim to. Bus Fleet is a record of the routes a school already runs and the ride assignments on them — not a route-optimization engine that redraws routes to cut miles. It stores the assignment truthfully; it does not imply an optimization it does not perform.
Where do the telematics numbers come from?
From the fleet. Bus Fleet ingests what a vehicle’s telematics or AVL unit reports — odometer, engine status, a position ping — and stores it as a record against the vehicle and route. It reflects what the fleet’s provider reports; it never invents a position, an arrival time, or an on-time number the fleet did not actually report.
How is a student's transport data handled?
As sensitive minors data. A ride assignment — where a child boards and is dropped off — is consent-gated, kept in our own private system behind the school’s row-level security, never sold, and never made public. Consent is the family’s to give and withdraw. The routing and assignment engine reasons over an opaque roster reference, not a name. This is not a claim that no data exists; it is a claim that the data is private and walled.
How much does it cost?
There is no pricing on this page. The product is in early access, money is honest-off — no fare collection, no checkout, no card charged — and it does not process payments yet. The honest next step is to ask about access and talk through what your transportation office needs, not to check out.
Why the name busfleet.software?
A bus fleet is the plain phrase for the vehicles and drivers a school runs to move its students, and this is the software record of that fleet. It is a descriptive name for a transportation record, chosen for exactly that reason: it says what the product is for without dressing it up.
Related surfaces
Bus Fleet is the transportation record. These adjacent destinations cover the wider platform and the neighbouring surfaces that moving students touches.
fieldtrip.software
The field-trip surface — the other place a school moves students under supervision, with permission slips and chaperones on the shared roster. Adjacent student-transport, kept a separate product.
middleschool.software
A grade-band front door on the same platform. A school that runs Bus Fleet runs the rest of the middle-grades day here too — course requests, advisory, and activities.
homeroom.software
The wider school platform this record rides on, and the home of the shared roster Bus Fleet keeps in sync from the SIS. The full picture of the platform and every tool on it.
What this page is and is not claiming
Bus Fleet — a school-transportation record with SIS-synced route and ride assignments, a fail-closed driver-eligibility gate, consent-gated student transport, and honest telematics ingest — is built, but this product surface is early access and not yet generally available. Live real-time bus tracking and parent notifications are on the roadmap and honest-off; the page never renders a fabricated live position and sends no notification it cannot back. The eligibility gate reads a recorded clearance and does not run the background check or issue a license. The school’s SIS is the system of record; the roster sync reads from it and invents no parallel enrollment truth. Telematics is reflected, not invented. A student’s transport assignment is private minors data behind the school’s walls, never sold and never public — not a claim that no data exists. There are no invented stats, testimonials, or user counts on this page, and no competitor brand names. Money is honest-off: no fare collection, no checkout, and the product does not process payments yet. The honest next step is to ask about early access.