With more than 1,100 clients throughout North America, edulog has extensive experience working with K-12 transportation professionals. Since 1977, edulog has been assisting school districts not only with software operations, but also in the areas of policy review, efficiency audits, special education transportation requirements, and school scheduling-all major areas affecting transportation spending and quality of service.
We have helped districts with enrollments from 800 to 440,000 students, covering geographic areas of a few square miles to a large portion of the Alaska interior, with entirely contracted fleets, a mix of publicly- and privately-owned vehicles, or district-operated buses serving all types of communities in 47 states and seven Canadian provinces. Therefore, we probably have encountered a situation very similar to that of your own district. Whether or not you currently have an edulog system, we can provide a number of services that can make your job easier, your operation more efficient-and potentially save your district quite a bit of money.
The immediate and lasting benefits of having an edulog consultant work with a client district include:
- edulog consultants can use their experience with routing systems and school district transportation operations to identify sources of greater efficiency;
- Having edulog perform or oversee data entry tasks can produce quicker results and more accurate information;
- edulog can complete tasks that may overwhelm the resources or the expertise of the district, thus ensuring the success of the project.
With the district staff (and any contractors that might be involved) edulog can review the current state of the transportation operation and gauge how effectively the fleet is being used. Then using our geographic-based routing and scheduling software, our consultants can use software to duplicate the current transportation plan and analyze whether or not improvements can be made through simple changes-such as grouping together runs serving two or more schools into a single route using only one bus. It is also possible to produce more dramatic results by simulating changes in one or more policies (such as school bell times). edulog staff can present the findings of the study to interested parties such as the school board, administrators, PTA, etc.
Using manual methods, it is often impossible to precisely predict what would happen if a transportation policy were to be modified-and the task becomes harder when several items are changed simultaneously. But with the edulog system, we can quickly and accurately determine how many fewer students would need to be transported if the walk distance were increased by one-half mile (or any other increment). Not only will the software tell us how many students would be affected, but also who they are and where they live. Similar information can also be provided about changing the walk-to-stop distance or altering attendance zones.
We can also analyze the efficiency of operating a shuttle system with transfer points as opposed to direct stop-to-school transportation. Using our optimization software, edulog staff can predict what would be the result on vehicle usage if school bell times were modified or if the grade configuration of a school were changed-thus providing quantifiable solutions to some very difficult problems.
edulog clients have achieved dramatic cost savings using our optimization software-either by reducing the total number of vehicles in the fleet or by transporting a growing number of students without adding buses. With our run building optimization software, edulog consultants can determine the correct number of vehicles needed to serve a school or set of schools while maximizing loads, or decreasing miles traveled, or decreasing the time students ride the bus.
The edulog route coupling optimization software can consider all of the district's runs in one pass to determine if minor adjustments can be made to produce a significant reduction in the required number of vehicles. We have also used our optimization software to help clients solve some very difficult problems-such as ensuring that every special education student transported in an entire county had a ride time less than the state-mandated one hour. With edulog's help, the district was able to meet the requirement and avoid financial penalties.
Obviously, the most stress is placed on both a transportation system and its operators during the preparation for a new school year. New students have to be registered, continuing students may change schools, a whole new group of kindergartners needs to be transported, stop and run assignments must be created and modified, and schools and parents notified of the new transportation scheme.
edulog consultants can help with these tasks on-site by ensuring that the data is correct, that the runs and routes are feasible, that notification cards are prepared in a timely manner, and that plans are in place to handle unexpected contingencies. If greater efficiency is desired, we can also use our powerful optimization software to produce results that improve service and decrease fleet requirements.
Many school districts have found that the greatest possible transportation efficiencies are realized by optimizing school bell times. To meet such a requirement, edulog's transportation consulting staff can use one of the edulog system's most powerful features: the bell time simulation/optimization software. This software is extremely useful for just the sort of simulations contemplated by many school districts that are searching for ways to increase transportation efficiency. Using the concept of variable windows for school start/end times, bus arrival/departure windows, and length of the school day, the software can be used to determine the optimal bell times to accommodate the desired fleet.
When performing a bell time optimization study, an edulog transportation consultant uses edulog's bell time simulation software to analyze the projected vehicle requirements resulting from having optimized school bell times. When performing the study, the following are considered:
- Current district bus runs
- Current district bus schedules
- Length of school day
- Varying arrival/departure time windows
- Varying school bell times
- Preferred groupings of runs into routes
- Preferred number of route tiers
The study examines both morning and afternoon routing patterns, and will determine the effect of optimized bell times on the transportation scheme and fleet requirements for the district. A written report, with supporting statistics, will be provided to the district. The study results will then provide the district with a fundamentally sound basis for making further decisions regarding what can be accomplished by modifying bell times. It should be noted, however, that changing from a two-tiered to a three-tiered busing plan may very likely increase the number of required buses.