Even if parents walk their children to the bus stop, they're still taking a small leap of faith that their kids will make it back home safe and sound at the end of the day. BusWays, a startup coming out of Boston College, is trying to reduce the doubt that surrounds this type of transportation. It has developed a way for parents and schools to track school buses, in addition to verifying whether individual children safely get on and off the bus.
Pedro De Almeida Rosa Guimaraes and Fernando Simoes Guimaraes Pinto Nazario, co-founders of BusWays and roommates at BC, grew up in Latin America, living in places like Venezuela, Panama and Brazil. During that time, they noticed issues with safety, traffic and erratic driving left their parents on edge when they were traveling on a school bus.
“The security isn’t big there… I noticed my mom and other parents would get very worried about the children," Guimaraes told us. "My mom would call me all the time asking if my brothers were on the bus with me, where the bus was. I came up with the idea. How can we fix this issue? Why is this happening?"
According to the co-founders’ market research, parents’ concerns surround not knowing if their children made it onto the bus or not, as well as whether the bus safely made it from Point A to Point B.
“Buses are a necessary evil,” Nazario said.
BusWays is meant to reduce parents’ worries about their children making it safely to school and back when they’re taking the bus. Through the app, children will receive their own, unique printable QR code, which they carry with them or parents can attach to their backpacks. Each time children board or exit the bus, their QR codes are scanned and parents receive a notification.
Parents aren't the only ones concerned about children's well-being while they're en route to school. BusWays is also catering to schools themselves, allowing them to keep tabs on their students' transportation.
The venture is offering vetted and approved schools access to an admin portal. This service gives schools data on their buses, including the average speeds they're traveling, the routes they're taking and attendance of their passengers. Schools can even track their fleets of buses live via BusWays.
BusWays is currently live on the Google Play Store. The startup first plans to test the app with a school in Panama, growing its user base in Latin America before looking elsewhere in the world.
The venture intends to make its services free for parents and children, instead charging schools. It has been bootstrapping so far. Recently, BusWays won the Social Impact prize at BC’s Elevator Pitch Competition.
