A transportation router at the School District of Haverford Township near Philadelphia works with software.
“During the fall, with school back in session, especially with new platforms, it’s more diffi- cult to schedule these training opportunities,” he added. “There’s no substitute for live con- ferences and the camaraderie that is felt, even among competitors. I’ve been going to con- ferences for over 30 years, and many of these people are like family to me. You can’t replace that with virtual events, but we’re making the best of this and learning at the same time. We’re all in the same boat.” Communication between providers is also
key for George Ramplin, the supervisor of trans- portation for the School District of Haverford Township, serving a suburb of Philadelphia. He said he remembers when his team had to use cell phones for GPS. “Currently, we have Edulog, and the GPS
communicates with our Samsara routing soft- ware. We can bring up a run, see where the bus is, where it stopped, where the lights came on, and anything else we need to see,” Ramplin said. Since schools first closed last March, Ramplin
shared he has appreciated the opportunities for hopping onto a Zoom session not just to learn but to also share ideas on reopening plans with other transportation leaders across the U.S. and Canada. “The webinars started after we shut down
in March, and those helped keep me busy and informed all through the closure,” added Ramplin. “Basically, we all were facing the same issues, and it was interesting to see how differ- ent districts were approaching opening back up with different scenarios. Edulog offered a Zoom conference about once a month.” Antonio Civitella, president and CEO of
went virtual and gave more personnel the opportunity to attend discussions on subjects such as industry policy and attend train- ing [sessions] they may not have been able to sit in on during a regular conference. With material coming from our consulting division, Edulog hosted these events weekly for 10 weeks, and we were pleased that dispatchers had the opportunity to attend leadership webinars, and managers who don’t work day-to-day with Edulog software could learn more about routing.” There were positive aspects to online sessions in other ways as
well. Graham said the company realized that in the first few ses- sions there were usually people who weren’t as computer savvy as others. Although they encountered a few difficulties at first, they soon got the hang of it and were able to interact by asking questions and fully experiencing the session.
Transfinder, has also discovered the oppor- tunities the pandemic has offered in terms of educating clients as well as his employees at their headquarters in Schenectady, New York. “The challenges and demands our clients are facing have made us step up and listen even more to the feedback they offer,” he said. “We’ve adjusted and created a university full of two- and three-day classes that are running 24/7. Even though we had to cancel our annual client summit, we have a massive amount of material online, more than we could present at an annual
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