systems in the country. Its transportation
PORTEE
services are quite an operation. With a fleet of more than 400 school buses and 600 personnel across two terminals, the system is a mix of regular school bus service
and an innovative shuttle service that serves
the district’s far northeast and near northeast neighborhoods. In all, the school district pro- vides busing for about 35,000 eligible students out of 88,000 total at the district. Executive Director Nicole Portee, who joined the DPS transportation department in 2003, helped launch the shuttle service when she began her new role as director in 2010. Te Success Express bus shuttle system operates much like fixed-route city buses, of-
fering students two to three opportunities to catch a ride. Now in its third year, the shuttle supports DPS schools to plan more flexible schedules, as well as DPS transportation to provide on-time access for students to their participating school of choice. According to the DPS transportation
website, within six months of the shuttle’s launch, ridership increased by more than 35 percent. During the 2010-2011 school year, less than 10 percent of students used trans- portation each week. With the launch of the shuttle system during the 2011-2012 school year, more than 45 percent of students utilized transportation each week. Portee said more schools have been added to the shuttle service since the launch. In- stead of expanding it rapidly, she took a step back to dive into some data around the pros and cons of the system and the grid of how streets work in areas to readjust routes for particular regions. She discovered a surpris- ing positive outcome from this process. “It was a learning experience for schools and families that work, that we consider time and distance,” she said. “Part of the updates to the system has given us a great stage to educate parents on transportation and the work we do.” Portee also discovered over time that
schools served by the shuttle service wanted to request bell times best suited for their students. “Te best efficiency for busing students is a tiered bus schedule, so we have focused on autonomy,” she noted. When it comes to technology, last year
Portee rolled out student transportation tracking throughout the entire fleet with Zonar’s ZPass+, which she renamed +Pass. Her hope is to eventually add the ability to use the +Pass card for library and lunch purposes so it can be used as one inclusive card throughout the district. At the time of this writing, she was continuing the rollout of the +Pass program throughout DPS. One of many positive outcomes from her use of metrics has been the ability to replace her yellow buses sooner than later, and with capital funding. Te typical lifecycle of her fleet is 7.9 years. “Trough metrics we have been able to
prove that replacing a fleet versus repairing it is a lot cheaper,” she said. Trough Portee’s initiatives and way of managing operations, the DPS transporta- tion department has gained a lot of support not only internally from administrators but from parents as well. “We’re not just yellow buses, but a valuable team member of the DPS team,” she said.
48 School Transportation News November 2013
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