trans’ Routing & Planning,” said Sellers. “I specifically asked for this capability so I could get to the software at any time via the internet.” During Hurricanes Laura and Delta in 2020, remote access to employee contact data inceased in importance, he added. “We could verify if drivers were alright. With the GPS
connections to Onscreen, we could see where the buses were if they were still operational. Several buses were completely destroyed, but we knew where they were already,” Sellers shared. While some districts have had data in the cloud for a
long time and others are in the process of making the move, there are districts that are still “old school” in their practices.
Lincoln County Schools in Hamlin, West Virginia
does not utilize any type of cloud storage, offered Peggy Stone, who was hired as the director of transportation last summer. “We do not use any type of student track- ing,” said the 25-year industry veteran. “We use paper, handwritten or typed schedules.” Stone said she appreciated being able to store sched-
ules on Microsoft OneDrive in a previous job. “It is very rural,” she explained of her district’s service area. “I came to Lincoln County from Kanawha County (where the state capital of Charleston is located), which is just the opposite. I am used to buses with GPS systems and com- puterized routing systems. This is a big change for me.” Lincoln County Schools does use Angeltrax camera systems, “but for the schools to view, I have to take a lap- top or a thumb drive to the school to share with them,” said Stone. “In Kanawha County, it was shared via a push of a button. We have a great technology department
here, so I am not sure why everything here is still ‘old school.’ We will get there one day.” Meanwhile, a relatively small school district with 3,000
students, Tomah Area School District in Tomah, Wis- consin deployed Transfinder’s Routefinder PLUS last June. “It came down to us wanting to have all of our information in one spot. Then it would make it easier for us to not have to worry about maintaining a server, particularly with the student information,” said Collin McCormick, transportation supervisor. “It wasn’t nec- essarily that it was going to be cloud-based. It was just that the program was much more user-friendly. It’s still a new program, but with every update, it gets better.” Though the district isn’t putting all of the data into the
cloud just yet. “We’re doing baby steps at the moment and seeing
how it’s going to work for our district in the long run,” McCormick added. “Right now, we only have basic infor- mation [in] the cloud just for routing purposes. We have a student information system we can access if we need additional information.” The Panama-Buena Vista Union School District in
Bakersfield, California, in the summer of 2020 deployed REI camera technology for its fleet of 69 buses that transport 7,000 students to 26 schools. Todd Price, the district’s transportation director, said the adaptation of the cloud-based technology capped a year’s-long search for the right solution. “I liked the idea of not having to physically go to the
bus or have somebody bring me a SIM card or flash drive to put into my physical computer,” he said, adding that deploying such technology is “not inexpensive,” though 20 percent of STN readers recently shared in a survey
Jim Ciulis (left), a transportation coordinator for Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda Union Free School District in Buffalo, New York, reviews student pickup information. The process can now be carried out remotely and securely because the information is stored in the cloud, where it is then accessible by Transportation Supervisor James Nestico (right), who is working at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
36 School Transportation News • JANUARY 2022
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
