Image: Taro Taylor
Parents and carers in New South Wales can now track their child’s bus journey for all buses in the greater Sydney metro area as easily as they can track their pizza orders.
Many of us are familiar with pizza tracking systems that use GPS technology to provide real-time location information to customers.
Now those who care for children can now plan a child’s school bus trip online and view the journey in real time using apps on their phones and tablets.
Timetables for all school buses travelling in the greater metropolitan area – from the Central Coast in the north, south to the Illawarra, and west to the Blue Mountains – are now available on tp.transportnsw.info, which includes route maps, arrival and departure times and stopping points.
Once the child is on the bus, parents and carers can then view the vehicle’s location in real-time using one of four apps – Triptastic, NextThere, Arrivo Sydney and TripGo.
Minister for Transport and Infrastructure Andrew Constance said it would help busy parents and carers plan their day down to the minute.
“This will be a great help to parents whose kids travel to school by bus and will take the guesswork out of getting them to and from the right bus stop at the right time,” Mr Constance said.
“Until now this information was only available for State Transit operated school buses travelling within areas of Sydney and Newcastle.
“For busy parents and carers who plan their day down to the minute, this handy timetable information will mean they can keep an eye on their child’s school bus without missing a beat.
“It will also give parents peace of mind knowing they can be there to pick up their kids when they need to.”
A Transport for NSW spokesperson explained how the system works to GovNews recently.
“Bus operators provide school bus data to Transport for NSW as data files. These are fed into a central database which validates the data and creates General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) timetable and real timefeed files. These files are sent to the Open Data hub where the data is publicly available for those who have registered on the portal,” the spokesperson said.
“The app developers pull this information from Open Data and integrate it into their apps. The same data is also imported into tp.transportnsw.info – Transport’s trip planning engine.
“Our successful roll out of this technology was due largely to our close working relationships with service providers, having a detailed understanding of the data and our requirements, and having high-quality data to ensure customers receive accurate information.
The real-time apps can be downloaded from either the App Store or Google Play.
South of the border the Public Transport Victoria has also completed the roll-out of its much –anticipated real-time tracking app. The project which commenced in 2013 project has now provides real-time departure information for train services as well as platform numbers.
