Do you sometimes feel like you’re drowning because of the endless tasks at your school district? It can sometimes be hard to stay afloat working in the transportation department, but it doesn’t have to be with the help of modern school bus routing software.
In a recent webinar, two experts in the student transportation sector shared their experiences both before and after adopting BusPlanner in their school districts. Meet our guests:
The chat was hosted by Binford Sloan, former Transportation Director at Nash County Schools, North Carolina.
Understanding the School Districts
Every school district has unique needs because of all the moving parts involved. Let’s dive deeper into understanding how both guests’ schools operate.
Osceola School District
Located south of Orlando, Osceola School District has approximately 74,000 students of which 29,000 students are transported. They run 257 routes daily to 60 schools.
Due to the proximity to famous tourist attractions, Osceola School District’s transportation department needed effective routing to get around traffic and ensure buses were on time.
EBR Schools
“Our current school system is the second largest in Louisiana and our transportation fleet is the largest in the state,” explains Rob. The transportation department at EBR Schools works with public, charter, and private schools, increasing the need for effective routing solutions.
EBR Schools has around 100 schools and transports around 40,000 students with nearly 400 buses. Additionally, attendance zones do not apply for students who are part of specialty programs at EBR Schools. This makes transportation more complicated since such students may be in any parish and need transportation.
Audience Overview
From a poll conducted for the webinar attendees, 60% of participants had more than 250 active daily routes.
Key Challenges Faced Before Using BusPlanner
Osceola School District faced many issues prior to using BusPlanner:
- Integration with GPS: Their previous routing provider couldn’t sync data with the GPS partner the school district worked with.
- Missing student data: Some of the data couldn’t be imported into the software Osceola School District was using before BusPlanner.
Much like Osceola, EBR Schools also faced challenges with their previous routing provider:
- Inefficient routing: Rob Howle mentioned that their previous routing software was inefficient. “In June 2023, they [previous routing provider] told us that they won’t be able to get routes for the Fall done in time.”
- Lack of time: Knowing that their previous routing software couldn’t meet their needs, EBR Schools’s transportation team started looking for a routing provider. School was already underway, and they had two weeks to implement new software. “When we told routing providers about how soon we needed the software, many of them laughed at us,” Rob added. BusPlanner was the only company that could do it within the timeframe EBR schools needed.
EBR Schools, LA
EBR Schools, LA
Experience with BusPlanner
At Osceola School District, Cynthia exclaimed, “BusPlanner’s customer support is amazing!” The video below summarizes Cynthia’s experiences with the support team:
Rob Howle mentioned the positive experiences the team at EBR Schools had with BusPlanner. Not only was BusPlanner able to get everything set up for the EBR team to work on in a short period of time, but they also went above and beyond to provide excellent customer service after the training was over.
BusPlanner’s support was there to help the EBR Schools transportation team with whatever they needed. Rob added, “I can’t tell you how many times I called BusPlanner, and they walked me through how to do things. I’d be multitasking and writing things down, but If I ever forgot a step, it was okay because the support team would email me the instructions anyway.”
Another thing that stood out to Rob was how easy BusPlanner is to use.
EBR Schools, LA
EBR Schools, LA
Impact Driven After Adopting BusPlanner
Both guests noticed significant improvements in their transportation departments after adopting BusPlanner:
- Faster employee onboarding: At Osceola School District, Cynthia remarked that the ease with which new routers could learn how to use BusPlanner was incredible. She added that a new router who joined the team was comfortable using BusPlanner within the course of two weeks.
- More time for field work: With how much time routers and staff members save with BusPlanner at Osceola, they have greater flexibility to analyze traffic patterns along routes and talk to drivers.
- User-friendliness: The routing team at EBR Schools benefits from the clear tips included in BusPlanner’s software. Another beneficial feature is that the software explains error codes to users effectively, making it easier to address any conflicting routes.
Efficiency Boosts
Optimization is an amazing tool within BusPlanner,” Cynthia said. With the school bus driver shortage across the US, it’s imperative for school districts to optimally allocate their resources and find ways to reduce routes, and BusPlanner has been of immense help in that aspect.
School District, Florida.
School District, Florida.
The routing team at EBR Schools greatly benefits from the powerful dashboards and reports they can access in BusPlanner. Apart from the optimizer, one of the features Rob loves is the interactive dashboard. He can determine which stops have zero students and take them off the runs to help save time and fuel. Rob said, “I run the BusPlanner optimizer, and it saves us 10 – 30 minutes each time.”
BusPlanner allows users to compare paths, which has been of immense importance for the team at EBR Schools.
Unique Tools in BusPlanner
Cynthia said that the Speed Tuner tool within BusPlanner adds a lot of value for her transportation department. With the traffic congestion in Florida, knowing traffic patterns and routing buses efficiently enables them to meet parents’ expectations.
Plus, data about new students and those who no longer need bus services helps routers stay up to date about the latest changes without wasting time.
Rob at EBR Schools loves the BusPlanner dashboard to stay updated with all the needed information. Besides that, his team greatly benefits from the geocoding error report. The error report allows Rob to fix errors, and the system uses that information to automatically prevent that problem from happening again.
“Another thing we noticed was that our student data was more accurate because we were fixing the geocoding errors, and other districts didn’t even know they had inaccuracies since their systems weren’t generating those errors,” Rob explained.
In a poll, webinar attendees were asked about which routing tools would be the most beneficial to them. 77% of the respondents said that optimization was the feature they wanted most.
Improving Stakeholder Communication
BusPlanner Web allows the team at Osceola School District to push nightly updates to the schools under them. That way, schools don’t have to call the routing team at the district for bus information.
With how well the system integrates, schools can pull information as they need, which has greatly reduced the number of phone calls as Cynthia explains in the video below.
Over at EBR Schools, BusPlanner Web has greatly improved communication in the district. Here are some things Rob loves:
- Live changes: Instead of waiting till the next day like they had to in their previous routing software, the EBR Schools transportation team can push live changes using BusPlanner Web.
- Greater control for schools: Schools no longer have to rely on the transportation department at EBR for turn-by-turn routes or bus routes. “When we need a driver to double up or need their help covering a route, we don’t have to worry about getting them a route summary. Instead, we can ask the person in charge of transportation at that school to print it out and bring it to the driver,” Rob added.
- Communication with parents: Rob loves that they can relay live updates and send schedules directly to parents.
When asked what areas of communication would benefit the webinar attendees the most, half of the attendees said they would benefit most from student transportation assignments to parents.
The Software Transitioning Process
Switching to a new routing software may be challenging, as Cynthia explained. But switching to BusPlanner is worthwhile. It’s important to involve all stakeholders in such decisions and keep an open mind.
School District, Florida.
School District, Florida.
Rob believes that the intuitive interface and data management tools made his life significantly easier, making BusPlanner a massive upgrade over the routing system previously used at EBR Schools.
