For James Waggoner, the Associated Director of Transportation for the Cobb County, Ga., school district, keeping roughly 75,000 K-12 students occupied during the 30-minute-plus bus ride to and from school can be challenging.

Finding a free alternative to AM/FM radio that has child specific content and advertisements seemed too good to be true. But that’s what Cobb County gets as a customer of BusRadio, the Needham, Mass., start up.

“We had a hard time getting over the fact that it was free, since nothing in this world is free,” said Waggoner. “It doesn't have commercials like for Viagra. It has calmed the students down.”

BusRadio was created to tap the underserved market of school-age children ages six to 18.  The company deploys free wireless Internet radios in school buses across the country and provides content and advertisements geared toward elementary, middle school and high school students.

“Kids radio largely reaches kids six and under and Top 40 radio reaches 18-34. There’s a big gap in the group that’s neglected,” said Michael Yanoff, co-founder and Chief Executive of BusRadio. “Over 50% of the country’s buses have FM radios and kids are listening to inappropriate music and inappropriate commercials.”

BusRadio, which has a radio station that sends content daily to the radios via servers housed in the school’s bus depots, caters the content and commercials toward each age group. The company employs its own DJs and runs various contests to keep the children engaged. “It sounds just like Top 40 radio but has fewer sponsorships and only age appropriate content,” said Yanoff.  “We do a lot of public service announcements and bus safety tips.”

BusRadio is free to the schools, with the company making its money through sponsorships from companies like Cartoon Network and Penguin Books. There is an average of four minutes of commercial per hour. BusRadio made an effort to limit the amount of commercials and will only allow a maximum of eight minutes as the company expands, said Yanoff. The service is available on 8,500 buses across the country, reaching over a million students daily.

Yanoff and his co-founder Steve Shulman, who have six children between the two of them, were driven to create BusRadio over their frustration with the conditions on buses where kids are rowdy, fights break out and teasing is commonplace. Yanoff wagered that radio content geared specifically toward a certain age group would keep the students engaged.

At the Cobb County School District that’s been the case. “It has really helped the bus drivers,” said Waggoner, noting kids go home from school and call into contests and to request songs. “The next day they hear the songs or hear their voice requesting it.”

BusRadio’s Internet radios also incorporate GPS, which lets the schools track the buses and include a panic button that sends a call directly to the 911 operator, who can in turn track the bus in case of an accident. The company is testing a program in certain school districts called MyBusAlert, which will text or email parents when a bus has arrived at a stop. It will also let parents know if the bus is running late.

 The pilot is being conducted at Rockford, Ill., school district, where Gregg Wilson, director of transportation said 160 families have signed up.  The Rockford school district was drawn to BusRadio largely because of the GPS feature, said Wilson. 

Implementing GPS would be a “million-dollar project,” said Wilson, noting that free GPS made a lot more sense. Not only does the GPS quell angry parents who claim a bus never showed up or was late, but its helps the School District save money, especially with $4.00-a-gallon gas.

 “GPS tells us if a driver is staying on the route,” said Wilson. “We had a driver who took her bus in the morning straight to McDonald's,” which was about four miles out of the way.