Understanding the Bigger Routing Picture Miles Cole, chief strategy officer at CI Solutions, said he considers routing
software the brain of an operation, similar to a larger student information sys- tem used districtwide. “It’s the hub of all the information of the students,” he explained, adding that in addition to the routing software there’s parent and driver applications. “When we look at the general understanding of what rout- ing is, I think it’s definitely extended from just, ‘Hey, let me ingest all the kids, put their address into my product, and then optimize based off of just an ad- dress.’ Now you’re seeing the routing providers need to do a lot for the drivers, turn by turn, timekeeping, everything from inspections. It’s all getting built into the onboard computer.” He said the expansion of routing software capabilities is the biggest change
he’s noticed in the past five years. “Rather than just having the driver fire up the bus, sit in their seat and [drive], they’re having to interact with the technology, which is all being driven in the office, in dispatch,” he added. “It’s like a window into what dispatch is doing. They’re able to give that driver that experience, and then the same thing goes to parents.” He explained that routing used to be a closed system only used internally.
Parent apps have changed that. A new audience must learn how to use the product and understand where the the buses are located. “There’s a lot of additional technical requirements to build a complete routing solution,” he said. “Today, it’s getting increasingly more and more complicated, but it’s all for the better for the end product.” He explained there’s also the potential relunctancy of drivers to use the technol- ogy based on the learning curve . “But as we’ve all kind of learned, we start to become far more effective when
we have a companion, whether it be a tablet or a laptop, something that can allow us to tap into a central system,” Cole added. “Giving them the ability to see what dispatch central routing team is looking for from a route optimization standpoint, they can also now have forms and information. They can do disci- pline management through onboard routing and systems that gives the kind of bidirectional share of information in office, down to the drivers, but also in reverse. This allows the organization to know more of what’s going on with the kids getting on or off the bus.” Cole noted that routing is the first step that is implemented because it allows
districts to organize who’s getting on the bus and where. The next stage, he said, is feeding that information to the driver, so they know where they’re supposed to go. This is the technical adoption piece. The onboard tablet has operational value such as turn-by-turn directions and driver time and attendance. “You have to remember that the goal of any operation that transports kids
is to be efficient [in addition to safe],” he said. “Because you’ve got fuel costs, you’ve got operating costs, you’ve got labor costs for drivers, all of which are always under pressure to be more and more efficient. So, student ridership completes the circle because you route kids based off of an address.” He explained that it’s important for districts to look at their eligible student population versus how many students are actually riding the bus. If a district has an enrollment of 10,000 students and 60 percent are eligible based on their home addresses, that doesn’t mean 6,000 are riding every day. “You need stu- dent ridership to actually give you more real time information of who’s on the bus,” Cole said. Parents apps, he added, can come either in the second or third phase of the implementation process, depending on if the app is designed to view the bus on the route, or has the capability to view if/when the student scanned on and off the bus.
24 School Transportation News • JUNE 2025
accounts for road speed and not traffic, which could extend the route another 15 minutes. “That is the human aspect
of routing, understanding your area and being able to make adjustments. The computer doesn’t under- stand every single little variance that you work with most days,” she said. She noted that even
though her district uses software, routers have first-hand knowledge of restrictions and unsafe routes. “Especially with how AI tools are coming out from certain routing software … l think that there still needs to be the human element to the human oversight, to knowing your district, knowing your ar- eas,” she said. “All of that [is important] when it comes to making routing adjust- ments and understanding why something’s not working out quite the way it [should].” Denver routes for ev-
ery eligible student in the district using itrout- ing software, Student Transportation by Tyler Technologies. Drivers are then provided their routes and route updates using paper route sheets that are sent to the terminal teams twice a week. Students can choose to enroll in any school in the district, no matter where they live. That doesn’t automatically mean they receive transportation. Those decisions remain based on zone boundaries and distance from school based on grade level.
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