Student Ridership Tracking
Card swipe on/off tracking proves which students were on which bus at what time, giving districts a verified record for every special-education ride.
Special education transportation comes with unique demands — accurate ridership records, IEP compliance, and peace of mind for families. UniteGPS gives districts the tools to track every scan-on and scan-off, document Medicaid-eligible rides, and give parents real-time visibility into their child's ride to school.
Purpose-built tools that help districts document, track, and manage safe transportation for students with special needs.
Card swipe on/off tracking proves which students were on which bus at what time, giving districts a verified record for every special-education ride.
Converts scan-verified IEP rides and categorized mileage into billing-ready records, helping districts recover reimbursable special-education transportation costs.
Live GPS tracking updates every 5 seconds, even with the ignition off, so transportation staff always know exactly where a special needs route stands.
Gives parents of students with special needs real-time ETA and timestamped ride history, easing anxiety and reducing calls to the transportation office.
Automatically syncs enrollment and IEP-related student data into routing and ridership records, eliminating manual entry when a student's needs or school change.
Builds efficient, need-specific routes and printable rosters, ensuring students with special needs get direct, well-planned rides with minimal time on the bus.
Transporting students with special needs requires more than a route — it requires documentation, accountability, and communication. UniteGPS combines ridership scanning, IEP/Medicaid invoicing, GPS tracking, and parent notifications into one FERPA-compliant platform, so districts across the country can meet compliance requirements while giving families confidence their child arrived safely.
See how transportation departments use UniteGPS to safely manage special-education routes and reporting.
Districts nationwide trust UniteGPS to handle the added complexity of special-education transportation.
FERPA-compliant ridership scanning and IEP documentation built specifically for special-education reporting needs.
Direct involvement from founders who built the platform from real conversations with U.S. transportation directors.
Trusted by 100+ K-12 districts across the country to manage safe, accountable student transportation.
Unlimited live support with no ticket queues, so special-education transportation issues get resolved fast.
The founders behind a platform built to solve real transportation challenges.
Co-Founder
Christopher Bunnell is a Co-Founder of UniteGPS, the company he helped launch in 2014 after watching his own children wait in the freezing Maine winter for a school bus with no arrival information. Driven by that firsthand frustration, Chris partnered with Steve C. Lanning and Steven J. Lanning to build a real-time GPS tracking solution that gave families the visibility they deserved. Before UniteGPS, Chris served as the on-site client representative in Baltimore for a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services project, while the technical team operated remotely from California. At UniteGPS, Chris has led client relationships and stakeholder engagement since day one, ensuring the platform continues to solve real problems for school districts and transit agencies nationwide.
Co-Founder
Steve C. Lanning is a Co-Founder of UniteGPS, bringing deep database architecture and enterprise-level technical expertise to the platform since its founding in 2014. Steve previously served as an Oracle database administrator on a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services project at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego, where he first collaborated with Chris Bunnell. In the early years of UniteGPS, Steve balanced the project alongside other professional commitments until growing client traction made it a full-time pursuit. His database expertise has been instrumental in building a reliable, scalable platform that now serves over 100 school districts nationwide, supporting everything from route optimization to student ridership tracking and SIS data integration.
Co-Founder
Steven J. Lanning is a Co-Founder of UniteGPS and the primary architect behind the Crosswalk platform, which he has built and continuously refined since the company's founding in 2014. Steven began his career on the same Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services project as his co-founders, focusing on solution quality assurance and software testing for production readiness while simultaneously pursuing formal software development training. When UniteGPS launched, Steven committed full-time to product development, translating real feedback from transportation directors and drivers into practical platform features. His customer-driven approach to engineering has helped UniteGPS grow into a fully integrated transportation management solution trusted by K-12 districts and transit agencies across the United States.
UniteGPS supports special-education transportation through student ridership scanning that verifies which student boarded which bus and when, real-time GPS tracking so staff always know a route's status, and advanced parent notifications that alert families the moment a child is scanned on or off. This creates a documented, auditable record for every special-needs ride, supporting safety and compliance requirements.
Talk to our team about how UniteGPS supports special-education transportation for your district.
Meets federal student data privacy standards
Trusted by K-12 districts across the U.S.
Built without private equity, since 2014
Share a few details about your district and our team will follow up to discuss how UniteGPS can support your special-education transportation needs.
For immediate assistance, feel free to give us a direct call at 207-591-7777.
For immediate assistance, feel free to give us a direct call at 207-591-7777.