LOS ANGELES — Southern California-based Tumbleweed Transportation, which provides school transportation to numerous Los Angeles-area schools, will start providing the SafeStop app to its customers at the start of the 2016-17 school year.

"We welcome Tumbleweed and their 150-plus vehicle fleet into the SafeStop family and look forward to working with them," said Patrick Gallagher, director of sales for SafeStop. "They are one of Southern California's leading school transportation providers and are really out front and leading the way in bringing school transportation into the 21st century.”

“We created the app with today's parents in mind to ease their concerns about knowing where the bus is and when it will arrive as well as for safety and security purposes,” he added. “Schools and contractors, like Tumbleweed, need to make this available to all parents."

"All of us at Tumbleweed Transportation are excited to join with SafeStop. The parents and schools we serve will be so thrilled to have the location of their child's bus at their fingertips," said Erin Borda, owner and CEO of Tumbleweed Transportation. "We will also be able to share key performance indicators (KPIs) with our school officials. Traffic in the Los Angeles area is always heavy and with SafeStop our parents will have up-to-the-minute information on the whereabouts of their bus and child. Safety, reliability, and security are what we, at Tumbleweed, are all about."

Created in 2013, SafeStop allows parents and school officials to securely track the school bus. The app includes a secure registration process, real-time map feature that displays the location of their child's bus, estimated times of arrival at their bus stop, and provides parents with an alerts and messaging center. The alerts and messaging center serves as an extra communication channel that alerts parents about important school news such as delays, closings, early dismissals, or upcoming school events and eliminates the need for phone calls to schools or bus depots. SafeStop also includes a proprietary student scanning feature that sends in-app notifications to parents when their child scans on or off the bus.

To learn more about the SafeStop app, visit www.SafeStopApp.com.