Lakeland teen develops bus-tracking app

LAKELAND (FOX 13) - Niriham Shah is spending some quality time with his family before he starts eighth grade. The 13-year-old is looking forward to starting school but not too eager to get up early and hustle to the school bus stop.

He's run into some timing problems with school buses before.

"In the morning and in the afternoons whether it was because of the traffic or weather situations the bus would be late to the stop or it would be too early so my parents and me would never know when the bus would be getting to the stop or when we should reach there and that was a little bit of a problem", said Shah.

He was inspired to do something about it. So he worked with the Young Entrepreneur's Academy in Lakeland to come up with an app called "Bus Wiz".

"It takes the location of the bus from the tracker", explained Shah.

The app earned him local and national awards. Those using "Bus Wiz" could track the location of the bus on their phone, similar to Uber. Parents can also use it to track their kids as they're heading home.

"Then they can select which child they would like to track if  there's multiple children riding different buses like if one's in middle school and one's in high school", said Shah.

"For the parents, it's a peace of mind they have a real time visibility about where the bus is what time they should plan to be at the stop, time frame, we always have situations like weather", said Shah's father, Malay.

Right now the app is in the development stages but Shah said, for the most part, the response has been positive. He's optimistic that it will take off.

"I plan to expand into different counties", said Shah.