School transport
School transport tracking, with a live link for parents
A school run has two audiences. You need to know where every vehicle is and whether it is on schedule. Parents need to know when to be at the stop. Yipii covers both from the same tracker, and parents get their view through a shared link rather than an account you have to create and support.
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Who this is for
- Schools running their own minibuses
- Transport contractors on school routes
- Local councils arranging pupil transport
- Operators running mixed school and private-hire work
Parents follow the vehicle through a link
Public link sharing gives a parent a live map of the vehicle without an account, a password or an app install. You send a link. They open it and see the vehicle. You control what the link exposes and how long it stays live, so a link can cover one route for one term and then stop working.
- No account to create, no app to install, no password to reset
- Scope a link to one route and one time window
- Revoke a link the moment a pupil changes route
- Works on any phone browser
Know who is driving
Driver identification ties each trip to a named driver. A driver taps an RFID card, an iButton or a BLE tag, or signs in on the app. On a hardwired install, you can require the tap before the engine starts. Where a school needs a record of who drove which route on which day, that record writes itself.
- RFID card, iButton, BLE tag or app sign-in
- Trips attributed to a named driver automatically
- Optional start inhibit until a driver identifies, on hardwired installs
Stops, timing and the awkward questions
Geofences around each stop record arrival and departure times. When a parent says the bus never came, or came ten minutes early, the trip history answers it. Route playback shows the vehicle position second by second for the whole run.
- Geofence every stop and log arrival and departure
- Trip playback across your full retention period
- Alerts when a vehicle leaves its expected area
- Speed records against the road travelled
Fitting a school minibus
Most school vehicles get a hardwired install. It is concealed, it cannot be unplugged by a passenger, and it gives you CAN bus engine data and the option of immobilisation. Our own auto-electricians do the fitting. Where you want to move a tracker between vehicles, or you are running a short contract, an OBD device plugs in and takes under a minute.
- Hardwired and concealed, fitted by our auto-electricians
- CAN bus engine data on hardwired installs
- Immobilisation available on hardwired installs
- OBD plug-in where the vehicle changes often
When Yipii is not the right fit
Cases where you should look at something else, or budget for a second system alongside this one.
- You want to track pupils rather than vehicles. Yipii tracks vehicles and assets, not people. Pupil-level tracking would need a different product and a different consent basis under GDPR.
- You need a booking, register or attendance system. Yipii does not do those, and does not replace one.
- You want parents to have a full fleet login. Parent access is deliberately a scoped link, not an account.
Questions
- Can parents see the school bus without creating an account?
- Yes. Public link sharing gives a parent a live map through a shared link, with no account, no app and no password. You control which vehicle the link shows and how long it stays live.
- Can we limit a parent link to one route and one time of day?
- Yes. A link can be scoped to a specific vehicle and a time window, so it shows the morning and afternoon run and nothing else. Links can be revoked at any point.
- Is tracking a school vehicle allowed under GDPR?
- Tracking the vehicle is generally straightforward. Where the system also identifies drivers, that is personal data, so you need a lawful basis, a privacy notice for drivers, and a defined retention period. Yipii hosts in the EU, encrypts data in transit and at rest, and sets retention by contract, typically around five years. Talk to us about your specific setup and take your own legal advice on the driver monitoring element.
- Can we stop the vehicle being started by an unauthorised driver?
- On a hardwired installation, yes. Driver ID by RFID or iButton can be required before the engine will start. This is not available on plug-in OBD devices, because it needs a wired connection.
Sources
- General Data Protection Regulation, full text · EUR-Lex, European Union
- Transport Malta, passenger transport licensing · Transport Malta
Talk to us about your school run
Yipii Ltd has provided vehicle tracking and fleet telematics in Malta since 2010, previously as Dazzle Panel and DP:Tracking. The platform, alerts and tracking run 24/7. Human support is available during business hours.
Written and maintained by the Yipii team, Malta.