MIDDLETOWN — Later this month, the School Department will pilot a new program designed to track the travel of school buses and student riders while they’re in transit.

The Mobile Accountability Program, or MAP, is the brainchild of Chris Collins, a former senior director of engineering at GTECH, who left his job to start MAPIT Corp.

Collins approached the Middletown school district about six months ago with the concept that, in its pilot phase, will place GPS tracking devices in two school buses and attach radio-frequency identification labels the size of luggage tags to the backpacks of the 80 or so Aquidneck Elementary School students who ride those buses.

School administrators will then be able to monitor — in real-time, via an online map of Middletown at MAPIT’s secure Web site — the progress of those buses and their passengers as the children enter and exit the buses. Based on the data, school officials could notify parents when a bus is running late, for example, or whether Jane or Johnny made it aboard the right bus.

Like many, Collins was dismayed to hear that between 50 and 60 Providence school buses were stranded during the Dec. 13 snowstorm after a communication breakdown.

“It’s an unfortunate thing,” Collins said yesterday. “It’s hard to understand what exactly went wrong. The communication system and the access to real information of what’s happening was not there.”

By the time of the storm, Collins was already deep in planning the Middletown pilot.

“It was kind of a bittersweet thing,” he said about Providence’s trouble. “I hate to see anything like that happen. But it did in some strange way validate that a system like this is needed. You can’t change Mother Nature, but you can certainly tell exactly where the buses are and who’s on them.”

Middletown, MAPIT’s first customer, has in the past had comparatively minor busing complications, such as occasional breakdowns, tardiness and a couple of minor accidents. But the district appreciates MAPIT’s focus on safety, accountability and efficiency, Schools Supt. Rosemarie K. Kraeger said.

“From the School Department side, we were interested in not only knowing where our students are, but also we’re concerned with efficiency,” Kraeger said.

The school district has already cut two buses from its fleet in the past two years due to dips in enrollment, Kraeger explained, and the MAP data could show potential savings if other routes are found to be losing passengers.

Collins, of Lincoln, whose brother is the Middletown schools’ facilities director, Edward Collins, said he expects to develop methods for parents to access MAPIT’s online information specific to their children.

“We’ve tried to design a system that’s as non-intrusive as possible,” Collins said when asked if the system presents any concerns about students’ privacy. “It’s designed for younger students. It’s not designed to keep tabs on your children, it’s designed to make sure they are safe.”

The pilot, which MAPIT Corp. is financing, will run for the rest of the school year. Then it’ll be up to the school district on whether it wants to continue and expand the service to the rest of its 16-vehicle bus fleet. Collins said MAPIT would charge roughly $40,000 for the year.

Once the pilot is up and running, Kraeger said, “I see myself mentioning this to my colleagues” in other school districts.

mwims@projo.com