when existing transit options can cut that same ride in half. Other times, school districts using vans for special needs students or those experiencing homelessness might be better served by maximizing school bus pas- senger occupancy. He suggested that districts determine what constitutes as an acceptable ride for their students and choose the mode that best meets those requirements. For “quick wins,” he advised school districts to examine existing policies on student walk zones and walk-to-stop distances and boundaries. In Indianapolis Public Schools, for example, he relayed that 4Mative analysis uncovered a high number of students who were riding school buses but should have been walking to school. “Are you maximizing what your policies give you,” he
asked. “Are you auditing your eligibility requirements?” Allen noted that a deep dive into the data may also
show that despite a policy that middle school students can walk up to one-half mile to their neighborhood school, circumstances might dictate that the district limit those walk distances to one-quarter mile. He also observed that many school districts create bus stops based on what they ended the previous school year with. Instead, he recommended that districts consider starting with a limited number of stops and add as few as possi- ble. For any routes with fewer than 10 students assigned,
school districts should consider a transportation network company or alternative transportation company provider. Meanwhile, AlphaRoute uses award-winning algo-
rithms developed by researchers at MIT to transport 30,000 students attending Boston Public Schools. The partnerhip was implemented by John Hanlon, Al- phaRoute’s CEO and co-founder when he was the COO of Boston Public Schools. The company champions routing as a service. “We
work with districts to optimize their routes, often without changing any policies or bell times,” Hanlon explained. “Our algorithms also allow us to do very quick full-scale scenario modeling, building solutions to evaluate changes in policy, even optimizing bell times, which I know is a common topic these days. It only takes us hours to create new solutions.” He said the result is systemwide optimization that
focuses on route count, which can cut fleet sizes by 10 to 30 percent, whereas traditional focuses on individual runs might only cut a fleet size by up to 5 percent. For instance, utilizing AlphaRoute's approach dropped the route count of Columbus City Schools in Ohio to 558 from 704, Hanlon said, adding that a current redesign for Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky is ex- pected to reduce routes to 600 from 830. ●
FOCUSED ON
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–Cody C. YOU Hear more about our
“One of the reasons why we moved to 100% for our fleet with REI was the quality of our images.”
–Tammy P.
surveillance, stop-arm and cloud-based fleet management solutions from customers:
“Moving to ARMOR™ and reducing some operational costs is going to really, in itself, pay for the system.”
800.228.9275
radioeng.com
800.228.9275
radioeng.com
–Anthony S. 26 School Transportation News • MARCH 2023
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