THOUGHT LEADER Changing Times, Perspectives Written by Tim Ammon I
’ve spent a good part of my career thinking about how we measure transportation performance. Like many in our industry, I’ve helped develop ways to quantify success, compare systems and identify op-
portunities for improvement. I still believe those things matter. But lately, I’ve found myself wondering whether we’ve been answering the wrong question. Student transportation has always had to justify itself.
That’s nothing new. Yet I can’t help but think that, some- where along the way, we became so good at purportedly demonstrating our value through savings that we forgot to show the value of the outcomes we support. It’s time to start a different conversation.
The World Has Changed Declining enrollment, school closures, grade realign-
ments, school choice, specialized programming, and alternative learning pathways are reshaping how stu- dents access education. Transportation professionals have done an excellent
job recognizing these trends. We’ve talked at length about how they will affect routing, fleet utilization, staffing and operations. What we’ve done less well is ask what these changes mean for the role transportation plays within the education system. Here’s the thing: Every one of those changes make transportation more important not less to the success of students. As educational opportunities become more diverse and geographically dispersed, transportation is no longer simply connecting students to the neighborhood school. It is connecting students to opportunity. And that’s a fundamentally different responsibility.
Succeeding All the Way to Unsustainability For decades, transportation professionals have been
remarkably good at answering one particular question: “How efficiently can you do your job?” And to be fair, there was a reason for that. We understood
that resources were limited. We wanted to demonstrate re- sponsible stewardship. We wanted school boards and district leaders to know we could be trusted with taxpayer dollars. So, we talked about efficiency. We minimized bus
counts. We maximized seating capacity. We reduced deadhead miles. We optimized routes. We proudly shared stories about doing more with less. None of that was wrong. In fact, it was what many of
us believed people wanted (or needed) to hear. But I’ve started to wonder if we misunderstood our audience. The efficiency so diligently pursued by so many de-
26 School Transportation News • SEPTEMBER 2026
partments has introduced an element of uncertainty and unsustainability to many transportation operations. By minimizing the number of buses and maximizing effi- ciency, we have left policy makers in a position where they have to make a binary choice between greater investments or eliminating services. I am fearful that greater investments is not a path many will take.
What Do ‘They’ Want from You? I don’t think most parents wake up wondering how
efficiently we utilized fleet assets yesterday morning. I don’t think board members are hoping transportation can shave another percentage point off bus utilization. What they want is much simpler. They want trans-
portation to work. They want the bus to be like a light switch. Flip it on, and it works exactly as expected. They don’t spend much time thinking about the wiring be- hind the walls that makes it possible. Transportation is much the same way. When it works,
very few people think about it. When it doesn’t, every- thing else begins to unravel pretty quickly. And perhaps that’s where we’ve gone astray. We’ve spent years ex- plaining how efficiently we run transportation systems when what people really needed to understand was why those systems matter in the first place.
Sometimes the Obvious is Not So Obvious One phrase has become almost impossible to avoid in
education: “We don’t want to divert resources from the classroom.” No service gets hit with that phrase more than transportation. It is both a reminder and a warning. It’s also a statement that almost everyone instinctively
agrees with. With everyone’s heads nodding, the con- versation often ends before it really begins. But I think it’s worth asking a simple question: “Does transportation actually divert resources from the classroom?” It certainly requires resources. No one disputes that. However, I would argue that transportation does not
divert resources from classrooms. Instead, transporta- tion fills classrooms and that’s resources to a district. Every student sitting in a classroom today first de-
pended on someone figuring out how to get them there. Every magnet program, special education placement, regional program or school choice initiative depends on transportation to transform opportunity into reality. For years, we’ve measured success largely by how
little transportation costs. We’ve celebrated our ability to provide the same level of service with fewer buses, fewer people or fewer dollars.
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