Rushing to catch a bus in the morning only to be met by a grumbling crowd of students and 10 minutes of extra wait time is not the best way to start the day. A new mobile application is looking to make mornings a little bit easier.

Binghamton University’s Off Campus College Transport (OCCT) has released an app that allows riders to track the location and estimated time of arrival at any stop of their entire fleet of blue buses.

Titled “ETA Spot,” the app was created by a third-party company out of Boca Raton, Florida, and is available for students to download on both the App Store and Google Play.

Once students download ETA Spot, they can select the buses they want to track. ETA Spot works with the GPS systems in OCCT buses to follow vehicle movements in real time. These buses will then show up on the user’s phone screen as a small bus icon.

According to Dillon Schade, Student Association (SA) president and CEO of OCCT, the idea for an app that could track the buses had been circulating for some time, but OCCT only got the ball rolling this year.

“Credit for the app should be given to the presidents before me,” said Schade, a senior majoring in industrial systems engineering. “Not much headway was able to be made until OCCT and the University decided to outsource the platform to ETA Transit instead of making the app in-house.”

GPS systems are also being installed in the new green campus shuttles, which will make them compatible with the app.

According to Schade, as the app starts to gain popularity, OCCT will be able to inform its riders of changes or delays in its routes.

“Once a majority of Binghamton students begin using the app, ETA Spot will help OCCT provide quick updates to students on route changes and delays,” Schade said. “This will help fix transparency issues with spontaneous road maintenance in Downtown Binghamton.”

This will also help during the cold winter months. According to Robercy Tapia, a senior majoring in biomedical engineering, real-time updates will be useful for off-campus students who have to wait outside for their buses to arrive.

“I’m always trying to catch a bus and it’s frustrating having [it] come super late,” Tapia said. “At least with the new app I can see how much longer I have to wait and decide which bus is faster or more convenient for me to take.”

According to Lauren Schulman, a sophomore majoring in philosophy, politics and law, the app will reduce the stress of off-campus students who have to plan their daily commutes.

“Knowing whether the buses are running on time or late is so helpful for students who take the bus regularly,” Schulman said. “It gives people the opportunity to stay warm inside and not have to rush to get ready if their bus is running late.”