Student Ridership is a student-tracking software module that enables you to see when your students have scanned on and off the bus, offering the peace of mind of knowing that the children safely made it on the right bus in the morning and got off at the right stop in the afternoon.

Student Ridership Verification is an extra feature with which your bus drivers can see if the student entering or exiting the bus is at the right stop or should even be on their bus. This can help prevent situations in which students get on the wrong bus (either in the morning or when they are leaving school) or exit the bus at the incorrect stop.

Note: Student Ridership is almost always implemented on top of the Comparative Analysis (CA) software module (see An Introduction to Comparative Analysis). When CA is in place first, the student boarding card information will be included as part of the nightly import of other student data.

Student Ridership is put into operation with one of these hardware setups:

• Bar code readers and cards: Bar code readers are employed on the buses to scan codes composed of thick and thin vertical lines on the students' ID cards.
   
• RFID (radio frequency identification) readers and cards: RFID readers are used on the buses to scan RFID cards (that the school has purchased for each student).
   
• Mobile data terminals (MDTs) plus RFID or bar code setups: The reader is attached to the MDT on the bus, and when a student scans on with their ID card, their student data appears on the MDT. This hardware setup is required for Student Ridership Verification.
   
• MDT-only option: Used primarily for Special Education Student Ridership, for special needs buses, this requires the driver or bus aide to check each student off on the MDT manifest at each stop.

After you have Student Ridership in practice, with your students consistently scanning on and off your buses, you can view data for your students in Synovia on these screens:

• Rider History: Provides historical student scan information based on a search by student name, including the vehicle number, route, location, and date and time the student scanned on or off the bus. Rider History shows the planned scan times compared to the actual scan times. See Mapping a Student's Scan History for details.
   
• Ridership Monitor: Displays live, real-time passenger information, starting with the vehicles transporting riders on a map — showing each bus's student count information in the main grid and one (selected) vehicle's student scan data in the lower grid (with details such as when the students scanned on or off and where). See Monitoring Which Vehicles Are Transporting Students Using the Ridership Monitor for details.
   
• Attendance: Shows students' bus-riding data, including the students' names, when and where they scanned on and off, and their bus route information. This is particularly useful if you need to report route attendance for reimbursement from other agencies, such as Medicaid. See Viewing Attendance Records for details.