School Bus Tracker App for Parents

Chipmunk is an exciting, brand new parent app that increases the transparency of school bus travel each day. This live app is based on GPS and imbedded AI technology that offers accurate information to users and is the only app that can simultaneously process GPS data from multiple GPS vendor solutions within a single transportation system environment. Chipmunk’s imbedded AI makes it smart enough to know when buses are not doing what they should – and will stop providing incorrect data to parents.

Chipmunk allows parents to access information such as:

Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA)

Chipmunk provides parents with an ETA summary for all of their children on one screen, making it easy to see all the key details.

How long until each bus comes
What time each bus is expected
Late buses in red

Real-time travel data for GPS-equipped buses

Chipmunk uses your planned routing information with your real time onboard GPS information to compare and calculate real time arrival estimates for each bus stop. It provides a live map view of the school bus while it’s en route, giving parents the exact location of the school bus.

Two-way messaging and key notification alerts

Chipmunk is a great way to get information to and from parents quickly and easily. Parents are able to communicate changes affecting school transportation with you.

This two-way messaging app can alert parents to delays and cancellations pertinent to their child(ren), reducing the number of phone calls you receive. In a nutshell, Chipmunk displays:

Personalized information for each child
Cancellations and major delays
General notices from the board

It is an improved way of communicating with the ones who need to know. Chipmunk will save your department time and money by allowing parents quick and easy access to information affecting school transportation.

Getting started

Chipmunk is available for both Android and Apple devices and can be downloaded free from either store to any device.

The app intro screen shows the Chipmunk logo as well as your school district / transportation authority’s logo for greater clarity and name recognition.

There is no advertising or other commercial hooks in the app that would compromise its informative purpose.

The Chipmunk app is the same for everyone. There’s an easy one-time setup process where parents would:

Choose the correct school district / transportation authority or enter a Quick Code password
Create a parent account and subscribe to one or more student’s information

With this information, Chipmunk is now setup for use with your specific school district – and their specific students. Setting up students does require some specific information to protect access to this information.

How Chipmunk Works

The Chipmunk app is only a single part of the whole solution. The process starts with your transportation planning data in your routing software database. It is important that this planned data reflect what is happening on the road. Second, your real time GPS tracking solution (from one or more certified GPS partners) should be setup and feeding data into your planning environment.

The Tracker Service (TS), as part of our cloud hosted network, uses the planned data from your routing database in conjunction with the live GPS data to determine and calculate ETA information for the buses and bus stops across the system. The TS is an integral part of the solution.

To ensure the accuracy of which vehicle is servicing which route each day, it is recommended that either our affiliated bus substitution and turns apps (available separately) are provided to your drivers in order to establish and provide reliable information to your parents.

Finally, parents use the Chipmunk app to view their child’s information with live data relating to each student’s travel and bus stop information.

Support for GPS market leaders

This live app is based on GPS and imbedded AI technology that offers accurate information to users and is the only app that can simultaneously process GPS data from multiple GPS vendor solutions within a single transportation system environment.