Transportation Services is introducing a new student badge program that will allow parents to track when and where their students board and depart HISD school buses.

Beginning, Oct. 29, students who are eligible for bus transportation service will use a personalized badge that must be scanned when they enter and exit their school bus.

“As we rectify some of the bus issues we have encountered this school year, this badge program will help to ease parents’ tensions,” said John Wilcots IV, interim general manager of Transportation Services. “They will know exactly when their child boards and exits the bus to go to school in the morning and the same at the end of the school day when they go home.”

Parents who sign up for ZPass, the program that operates the tracking system, will receive real-time notifications via text or email to alert parents when and where their child enters and exits the bus.

In addition to providing parents with real-time information, the badging program will also provide the department with real-time ridership data. The data provides an automated ridership count — information that is essential to improving bus routing, analyzing bus utilization, and providing accurate ridership data to the state.

The program will initially launch later this month at about two dozen schools. As the system is refined, and potential issues are addressed, additional schools will be added in phases until all schools have been included. Parents will be notified when their child’s school will be added to the program.

For more information on the student badging program, parents can contact the Customer Care Team at 713-556-9400 or visit www.houstonisd.org/transportation.