TOST: School Bus Monitoring and Management System for Schools and Parents

School bus contributes positively to reducing the number of cars on the road, thereby reducing the environmental impact of cars. It also dramatically relieves working parents, who do not have to pick up and drop off their children separately in their private vehicles. However, the irregularity of the bus arrival times often leads to an extended waiting time for students at the bus stops, potentially compromising the students' safety. The communication barrier between schools, parents and bus drivers is also a significant challenge, mainly when a delay occurs during the transit of the students. This paper presents TOST (to-school-together), a school bus monitoring and management system for schools and parents. The school administrators, parents, and bus drivers are connected in one comprehensive school bus system. The proposed system provides realtime updates on the bus status, allowing peace of mind and easing the burden of parents, school administrators, and bus drivers. The design of TOST is based on feedback from the system stakeholders collected via a survey. We draw a complete understanding of the existing issues by analyzing the feedback. Finally, we have implemented the system using state-of-the-art technologies to address the identified issues and fulfil the system requirements.