An advance notification system and method notifies passengers of the impending arrival of a transportation vehicle, for example, a school bus, at a particular vehicle stop. The system generally includes an on-board vehicle control unit for each vehicle and a base station control unit for making telephone calls to passengers in order to inform the passengers when the vehicle is a certain predefined time period and/or distance away from the vehicle stop. The VCU compares elapsed time and/or traveled distance to the programmed scheduled time and/or traveled distance to determine if the vehicle is on schedule. If the vehicle is behind or ahead of schedule, the VCU calls the BSCU, which then adjusts its calling schedule accordingly.