NYC Requires GPS Devices to Track All School Buses

All yellow school buses in New York City will now be required to have tracking devices installed so administration and parents can track where students are as they go to and from school.

Legislation that passed the City Council on Wednesday afternoon will require both a two-way radio and a tracking device on every school bus, and will allow authorized parents access to the information in real time. The bill will take effect for the upcoming 2019-20 school year.

The bill, which was sponsored by Ben Kallos of Manhattan and signed onto by 22 lawmakers, aims to tackle parents’ concern when buses are routinely late. The situation has escalated in the past several years, according to a press release by bill cosponsor Chaim Deutsch of Mirwood, with 82,000 complaints from parents in just the first few weeks of the current school year, a 19 percent increase compared to the previous year.

“As a father of five children,” Deutsch said, “I’ve felt that fear of not knowing where my child is. Putting your precious child onto a school bus should not have to be a scary experience.”