NYC School Bus App

NYCSA Account Creation Support

As part of ongoing efforts to enhance services for students who receive busing from the New York City Public Schools’ Office of Pupil Transportation (OPT), families can download the NYC School Bus Caregiver app, from the Apple and Google Play stores. This application, developed in partnership with Via, a leader in transportation technology, is available across the city to families who use yellow bus services. The Via application can track your child’s school bus and show you the bus location on a map. For more information, visit the New York City Public Schools website.

To use the NYC School Bus Caregiver app, families first need to have a New York City School account (NYCSA). You’ll sign in to the NYC School Bus Caregiver app using the same credentials as your NYCSA account. 

To get a NYCSA account, families should make sure that:

• Your child has a valid NYC Student ID number, and 
• The correct information about the parent or guardian is in the applicable NYCPS student information systems. The parent coordinator in your child’s school can help with this.
• Once you’ve confirmed this information, you can create a New York City School account.

Get step-by-step instructions on how to set up a NYCSA account.

Enter your information into NYCSA to register for a basic account, or contact your child's school for an account creation code so you can add your child.

If you run into any difficulty while creating a NYCSA account:

• Contact your child's school to confirm that your information appears correctly in NYCPS student information systems and request any other support you need to create a NYCSA account. 
• If after you have created a NYCSA account, you still cannot access the NYC School Bus Caregiver app, please contact the parent coordinator at your child’s school to verify that the required documentation is properly linked in NYCPS student information systems.

School staff from NYC Public Schools, charter schools, or nonpublic schools who need support helping to create NYC Schools Accounts for their families can email NYCSchoolsAccount@schools.nyc.gov for assistance.

Partnership with Via

Why is the Department of Education partnering with Via in New York City?

We are working with Via to customize a solution for student transportation to meet the needs of New York City families, students, schools, administrators, and school bus companies. We are introducing these technologies to NYC student transportation to improve the overall quality of service.

Via has global experience providing innovative software solutions to optimize networks of school buses, dynamic shuttles, buses, wheelchair accessible vehicles, and autonomous vehicles.

What are the goals for this project? 

Every child has a right to effective and efficient transportation and this initiative will help us to improve bus operations for the country’s largest school district. The project will make it easy for families to verify a student's location when they are riding the school bus and will provide near real-time pickup and drop-off times.

The Driver App 

The first phase of this process focuses on training drivers and school bus companies in appropriate practices and use of the Via technology. This phase will support consistent login to the Driver App and adherence to assigned routes, setting the foundation for successful tracking of rider status in later stages.

School Operations Console 

The School Operations Console allows schools to view the location of school buses serving their school on a single screen. Once the majority of our school bus drivers and vendors adopt the Driver App, the NYC School Bus App and School Administrative Console will begin to report the location of buses.

NYC School Bus App 

The NYC School Bus App is a mobile application for families that shows the real-time location of the bus and provides notifications about their child(ren) boarding and exiting the bus.

Ridership Tracking 

Ridership tracking will allow families to get notifications when their child boards and exits the school bus. This project phase includes passes for students to scan, the ability for students to have their own account in the NYC School Bus App. 

Approach

Each phase of this process is centered on building tools and systems that work for various stakeholders (drivers, schools, families, students, etc.). As we test each component step, we will gather feedback from our stakeholders, make improvements, and then scale up to continuously improve our system and better serve our families.

Phase 1

Driver App and AVL Tracking

Phase 2

NYC School Bus App and School Operations Console

Phase 3

Student Ridership Tracking

History

How did the modernization project come about? 

A new Chancellor’s Regulation (A-802) requires the installation and use of automated vehicle location equipment on school buses. We also amended new bus contracts to include provisions that require the use of AVL while operating buses.

By the end of 2019, 10,000 AVL devices were installed on our school buses.

As part of this effort, we issued a request for proposals (RFP) to modernize our busing systems. The contract was awarded to Via.

What has the DOE achieved in partnership with Via so far? 

Work on this project began in September 2019. 

Accomplishments during the 2019-20 school year: 

• Began engagement with three bus companies and a focus group of a small group of drivers about the Driver App
• Gathering and documentation of business and technical requirements
• Began engagement with schools and district offices about various administrative consoles
• In February 2020, held feedback session with families and advocates on the NYC School Bus App

We paused the project in 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it recommenced in the 2020-21 school year by kicking off with small-scale testing of systems to ensure that each component was successful before expanding. Full rollout will be accomplished through a phased approach.  

What Happened During the 2021-22 School Year?

• The Driver App was released to all our school bus drivers by the end of the 2021-22 school year
  • In the 2020-21 school year, the DOE began a pilot program with two bus vendors to install and train drivers on the Driver App, focused on ensuring drivers logged into the system and followed the assigned routing on every trip
• 18 schools in District 26 and almost 80 additional schools citywide now have access to the School Operating Console