It’s a scene
we see every year: around the time when budgets start getting analyzed and
allocated, superintendents and finance directors across the country look at all
those commas separating the numbers for the transportation budget. Their eyes
go wide, and they ask the inevitable question, never meant as an insult: “How
much of this is necessary?”

The answer,
of course, is all of it. Right? We necessarily need students to be transported
to school on time and safely. But, wow, look at all those zeros! What can you
do? You probably feel like you’re doing everything you can already. But maybe
we can wring out this transportation towel just a little bit?

That was the challenge proposed to Andy J. Martin in 2011 at School District U-46, Elgin, IL. Andy retired from U-46 in 2017 after 30 years with the district, and this is only one of his many stories of transportation challenges overcome. Without sacrificing any level of service, he was asked to cut five percent, or about $1.5 million from his existing budget. His creative solution—which actually increased the level of service to the public—saw a $647,000 in average annual savings and has since served as a model in an effort to assist other school districts. This month, we break down exactly how he accomplished this, so maybe you can consider adopting a similar model for your operation.

The Challenge

• 27,000 students need to be brought to
  and from school every day: six high schools, eight middle schools, and 41 elementary
  schools
• Five percent non-negotiable budget
  cut
• No bell time changes, program
  changes, or attendance boundary changes can occur
• The only way to find efficiency
  (reduce buses, miles, fuel, etc.) was to create an additional tier within a
  limited time frame

The Solution

• The highest number of transported students
  were high schoolers, so that’s where Andy and his team started to look for and uncover
  previously unidentified efficiencies
• Andy realized he had elementary and
  middle school buildings throughout the various communities, each with their own
  walk boundaries
• He decided to see what it would look
  like to use those building locations as bus stops for the high
  schoolers, thus reducing the amount of high school bus stops throughout the
  communities
• The assistant director of
  transportation (Amy Cook, now an Implementation Consultant with Tyler
  Technologies) added to this consolidation by recommending local parks and other
  “green spaces” where students from surrounding neighborhoods could wait safely in
  mass

The Steps

• Using Tyler’s routing software, the transportation administrative
  team quickly identified which high schoolers fell into those walk boundaries,
  complete with a reportable list of all affected students
• They created additional bus stop
  boundaries in those “green spaces” where it would be safe for many students to gather
  and wait
• The key here was the routing software’s
  ability to encode hazard areas and street restrictions into the map
  to make sure students wouldn’t be assigned to cross or walk along unsafe
  streets, or be exposed to hazardous conditions
• Without changing the school’s bell
  times, the transportation administrative team also discovered they could widen
  the allowable drop-off window at the high schools by 20 minutes and create a second
  tier of high school runs, which wouldn’t have been possible without the mileage
  savings and reduced route time found through the school/neighborhood stop
  method
• Another key factor was how Andy rolled
  it out to the public — by earning their buy-in through transparency. He explained
  and demonstrated that high school students wouldn’t be asked to walk any
  farther than the students already attending those elementary and middle schools,
  which could be up to 1.5 miles in most cases
• In an effort to maximize transparency,
  the administrative team assigned additional transportation professionals to go out
  into the communities to verify and confirm distances with walking wheels,
  showing that safety and accuracy was of utmost importance

The Savings

• Reduced fleet by 15 buses
• Responded to an existing driver
  shortage by reducing 21 driver positions
• Reduced hours needed for routing
  staff
• Reduced fuel by 249 gallons per day
• Reduced fleet maintenance costs by
  $12,000 per year
• Total savings: $647,000

The Other Benefits

• Maintenance savings resulted in a reduction
  of no starts and breakdowns
• Reduced mileage resulted with less
  delays from construction and traffic
• Reduced stop changes, as many parents
  no longer requested a different level of service for their student
• Safer bus stop areas, with police
  presence at bus stops, timely snow removal, and buses waiting for students
  instead of students waiting for buses in the early mornings and in bad weather
• Having multiple buses in one place
  helped response time to breakdowns and driver call outs
• Multiple buses working together in
  the same location also increased driver morale through informal team building

The goal of $1.5
million savings was accomplished within the first 2.5 years. The annual
$647,000 savings continues annually to this day.

By thinking
differently about how bus stops could work in his community, and by having routing software that handled and responded to the
complex nuances and scenarios of the new method, Andy and the team were able to
shift the tiers, double up where possible, and reduce overhead for the
operation. If you’re challenged with something similar, instead of viewing the
challenge as an impossible problem that “can’t” be solved, try thinking outside
of the box regarding how you get students to and from school. And if you need
software that can handle cost analysis, bell time studies, redistricting, and
custom reporting, contact Tyler today!

This post
would not be possible without the experience and generosity of Andy J. Martin,
who has 37 years’ experience in the pre-K to 12 transportation industry.