Cutting Costs With Bus Routing Software
published on March 04, 2022 by Sonia Mastros
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It’s no secret that school districts across the country are having a difficult time balancing their budgets. Whenever a school district faces financial challenges, the transportation department is a likely target for cuts. Eliminating bus stops and changing routes often concerns parents and administrators. Fortunately, bus-routing software can help you to optimize your routes without compromising student safety.
How Bus Routing Software Saves Money
School bus routing and tracking software is one investment that quickly pays for itself. In the business world, leaders understand that maximizing efficiency saves cash. The same is true for school transportation. Here are some of the ways that bus routing software pays off.
Route Planning: Some districts still rely on manual bus route planning. This is a complicated and time-consuming process. Routing software eliminates the need for lengthy planning sessions that can lead to disorganized routes. What once took days now takes minutes. Special features allow you to designate zones and parameters and create routes that are both efficient and safe.
Maximizing Efficiency: Efficient routes mean spending less on fuel and reducing driver down-time. School bus routing and tracking software can help you to identify routes that can be cut and stops that can be consolidated. This technology can also enhance student safety by creating routes that avoid high-traffic areas or sex-offender residences. Ideally, your goal will be to minimize the number of drivers and buses needed to get your students to and from school. With driver shortages around the country, this can also reduce the need to invest in continued recruiting.
Integration: Bus routing and tracking software technology has advanced rapidly and programs can now be integrated with other tools, like GPS systems. Paired with these integrations, school bus route planning software helps transportation departments to develop efficient routes, track ridership and identify inconsistencies which could be causing increased costs.
Additional Cost-Saving Benefits: Investing in bus route planning software often saves money in unexpected ways. For example, more efficient and safer route planning can lead to lower insurance costs. When integrated with rider tracking programs, reporting also becomes easier, meaning full reimbursement from state programs.
To learn more about BusBoss and the benefits of school bus routing and tracking software, contact our team to request a demo. We’d be glad to talk to you about the many options that can help your district save money.
How has school bus routing software saved your district money? Please share your feedback with us.