School BUSRide November 2025 | Seite 12

Presented by Zūm

The Results Are In: How Zūm is Modernizing Student Transportation for Everyone

Ten years ago, Ritu Narayan, Founder and CEO of Zūm, set out on a mission to modernize the school bus system for all children— including her own.
“ Other parents and I would talk about the daily struggle to get our kids to school safely, reliably, and on time,” she says.“ We never knew when or if the school bus was coming, or whether our children had arrived at school. We couldn’ t miss work and take them ourselves. I kept asking myself, how is it that we can track our packages and food orders, yet we cannot track our most precious cargo – our kids – to and from school?”
Today, Zum is reshaping the industry, using state-of-theart technology and equipment to increase safety, efficiency, transparency, and equity on the school bus for children, families, drivers, operators, and schools nationwide.
Zum also brings something that was largely missing from student transportation: comprehensive, real-time data and dashboards that are role-based and easy-to-use to seamlessly manage daily operations. Through real-time analytics and a comprehensive, endto-end platform that keeps all stakeholders informed, the company is revolutionizing the school bus system for more than 4,000 schools.
12 | SCHOOL-BUSRIDE. COM | NOVEMBER 2025
Safety and Reliability Zum’ s AI-driven safety technology optimizes daily bus routes, tracks children’ s arrival and departure, and connects families, drivers and operators, schools, and district administrators with the right level of information, making each user’ s day-to-day job easier. RFID-enabled bus cards track ridership and attendance data and deliver real-time notifications when a child has safely boarded or exited the bus. Through the Zum App, parents can view accurate driver and vehicle information, along with real-time information such as the vehicle location and their child’ s pickup or dropoff status.