The holiday season is upon us and there’s finally some time to sit back and relax as you get a well-deserved break from the busy world of student transportation. After some relaxation, it’s important to look back and reflect on how things went at your school district and prepare for when schools reopen in spring.
By planning ahead, you can ensure that everything goes according to plan. Here are 4 questions to reflect on over the winter break to prepare for spring.
How Did My District Perform in Fall?
It’s important to take a step back and analyze your performance. What’s a better time to do that than when you’re away from the action?
Some important metrics to evaluate your school district’s performance are:
- On-time rates: It’s important that your buses are on time and students aren’t missing classes. With chronic absenteeism plaguing schools across North America, it’s important to address this problem.
- Slack and idle times: How much time are your buses spending in between picking students? What percentage of total trip time do they spend idling away? It’s important to measure bus productivity and eliminate slack time to maximize efficiency.
- Driver feedback: What do your drivers have to say about the routes? If they have any recommendations, it’s important to look into them, since they are your eyes on the ground.
- Parent feedback: While it may be tough to keep parents happy, getting their feedback is crucial in determining gaps in your operations. Listen to what they have to say about how bus drivers are behaving with students and the condition of your buses. School bus routing mobile apps can facilitate two-way communication to get feedback from parents.

How Can I Improve My Routes?
There’s always room for improvement, especially in student transportation. Analyzing routes will not only help you save time but also lower operating costs.
- Where to place stops: Knowing where to place stops or consolidating stop locations is important in improving efficiency and eliminating redundancies. This can be useful to address changes in enrollment or when students move. A great way to make these changes are through redistricting tools for student transportation.
- Analyzing traffic patterns: Are there better routes that your buses can take? Where can you shave precious minutes off your routes? By analyzing traffic patterns through school bus routing software, you can avoid sending buses on routes with more traffic.
- Finding alternate routes: What do your routes look like? Are there a lot of elevation changes? If there are, it could lead to increased fuel consumption and greater brake wear. While this may not be evident in the short run, these maintenance costs can add up. It might be a good idea to see if there are alternate routes that have a more level terrain or fewer traffic lights.
Is My Staff Well-Equipped to Deal With the Unexpected?
It’s important for your transportation department to know how to deal for the unexpected. While it isn’t possible to take a cookie-cutter approach to ensure that your team can deal with all challenges head-on, they should be well-equipped to deal with situations that aren’t in their control.
- Driver training: Engaging in training sessions for drivers enables them to navigate problems that happen outside the realm of day-to-day driving. Basic training for CPR and knowledge about using epipens to counter allergies is a must for drivers.
- Phone calls: It’s important for the transportation team to deal with angry parents and stakeholders empathetically and in a way that does not lead to lower student ridership. Additionally, mobile apps for school buses can greatly reduce incoming phone calls, which can lower administrative workload on your team, leading to lesser frustration when parents call
Are my Buses Ready for the New Year?
With how unreliable school buses can be sometimes, it’s important to address issues before they arise. By engaging in preventative maintenance, you can ensure that your buses stay reliable and don’t run into any problems while running their routes.
Additionally, this may be a good time to get your entire fleet inspected to ensure that older buses are in working order. Fleet management tools for school buses can help you track the health of buses in your district.
Conclusion
While tackling operational challenges in the new year, it may also be time to consider investing in an all-in-one transportation management software. Not only can it help you manage many of the challenges discussed above, but it also enables for granular control for you to ensure things are going as planned.