TRENDS Tackling Challenges & Trends Nearly half of all respondents to a recent School
Transportation News survey sponsored by Zonar Systems indicated concern about limited staff resources when managing fleet technology. Over one-third said they struggle with manual processes. That begs the question, how can AI help? To date, much of the industry AI conversation has
centered on technology solutions to address routing and safety challenges. AI holds the promise of quickly and more efficiently packaging data so student transporters could use those insights to make faster decisions. Some vendors provide AI-enabled solutions to this end, but how can student transporters better utilize generative AI to find answers, create reports and presentations, even write their own software for apps? What training opportunities does that create, espe-
cially as reducing operational costs over the next couple of years remains top of mind. At least for 58 percent of
Survey Methodolgy School Transportation News emailed a 12-question online survey to 31,737 industry professionals who subscribe to the print magazine, digital magazine or eNews and collected a total of 223 reader responses between Feb. 10 and Feb. 20. Answers are rounded to the nearest whole percent. At least one response was logged by operations located in 34 states and three provinces. Two-thirds of the readers identified as transportation directors or assistant transportation directors (48 percent) or drivers/ driver trainers (18 percent). The remaining responses were submitted by operations managers (9 percent), fleet managers (8 percent), safety managers (6 percent), special needs coordinators (5 percent), private fleet operators/executive (2 percent), superintendents or district executives (2 percent), and finance/purchasing officials (1 percent). Eighty-four percent of the respondents represent school district owned and operated fleets. Over 60 percent of the fleets represented in the survey consist of 10 to 99 school buses.
survey respondents. More school districts are using parent apps to provide transparency on where student riders are in their school journey, with 55 percent saying they currently use these technological solutions. But 45 percent said parent com- munication gaps are the most challenging safety-related issue. For those school districts not using parent apps, how can AI phone agents better answer and route calls, such as by providing answers to common parental FAQs? While AI cannot put drivers behind the wheel, how can
it be used to identify potential applicants? Three-quar- ters of respondents said hiring and maintaining drivers is their biggest operational challenge, and nearly 70 percent said driver shortages will continue to be their primary focus over the next two to three years. Related, the survey also indicated on-time performance of routes was on average the most important KPI for operations to gauge. ●
When managing fleet tech data, where do you experience the most difficulties in your day-to-day operations?
ANSWERS
Limited staff resources Manual processes
Managing volume of video footage for driver and/or student behavior Training / adoption challenges Disconnected systems
Lack of real-time, actionable data Vendor limitations
118 respondents, 249 answers selected (multiple answers allowed)
What is the approximate size of your fleet? Answers
10-49 50-99
100-299 300+ 1-9
223 Respondents
what best describes your operation?
118 Respondents 16 School Transportation News • APRIL 2026 Answers School district
Private contractor Mix of private &
District-owned buses
PERCENT 84%
11% 5%
percent 48% 36% 35% 27% 25% 23% 18%
PERCENT 36% 26% 17% 11% 10%
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