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Solution In March 2023, Howard County Public School System
awarded Zūm a 230-route contract. Zūm had five months to recruit, train, and hire over 230 bus drivers, a tall task. It did so by: 1. Evaluating the employment market in Howard County, and Maryland broadly, to devise a competitive and comprehensive compensation package;
2. Launching an extensive multilingual, interactive digital and on-ground marketing campaign to educate and attract candidates;
3. Building a 20-person on-ground training team for both in-class and behind-the-wheel (BTW) instruction, allowing Zūm to train and certify new school bus drivers.
As a result, by the start of the 2023-2024 school year,
Zūm had trained and certified 87 new school bus drivers, hired 65 pre-certified local school bus drivers, and as a stopgap, temporarily flown in over 70 drivers from out of state—all of whom received extensive training to drive school buses in both Howard County and the State of Maryland. This reduced Howard County’s driver shortage from 20% to 3%. Within a month of the start of school, Zūm had sourced and hired 250+ drivers, filling the 100+ driver shortage and turning Howard County’s historic shortage to a driver surplus.
“Within a month of school starting, Zūm had completely filled the 100+ driver shortage, with additional drivers to spare.”
2) Designing Bell Schedules and Bus Routes for Maximum Efficiency
Challenge Districts across the nation are considering and/
or implementing multiple-tier bell schedules. Small changes to bell schedules can offer students flexibility and more time to sleep, improving classroom outcomes. Multiple-tier bell schedules can also reduce cost and alleviate pressure from chronic driver shortages. In 2021, Zūm’s partner, San Francisco Unified, saved $3M in annual transportation costs by switching to a multi-tier bell schedule. Yet these same schedules can also be disruptive, if: 1. New bell times are implemented without input from transportation providers, and bus routes are forced to fit these bell times after the fact;
2. Districts use outdated technology to design routes, because multiple-tier bell schedules are extremely complex; and
3. Districts don’t use modern, integrated technology, because without data and real-time feedback, a District can’t adjust its bus routes to fix problems and improve performance.
Solution This year, the Howard County Public Schools
System switched to a 3-tier bell schedule without full appreciation of how this would affect student transportation. To accommodate the new schedule, District Staff designed routes that were tightly compressed and stacked back to back, with unrealistic turn around times. This naturally caused substantial bus delays, which cascaded through the tiered bell schedules. During the first week of school, for Tier 3 schools, only 83% of Zūm buses were on time picking students up in the morning. In the afternoon, that figure was just 38%. This put significant strain on the students and families of Howard County. To resolve the issue, Zūm imported data from thousands of daily routes, then analyzed that data with its proprietary “Route Explorer” software, and used the results to recommend minor shifts to Howard County’s bell schedules. Once implemented, on-time performance for Tier 3 schools jumped from 83% to 98% in the morning, and from 38% to 94% in the afternoon. Zūm’s use of technology all but eliminated bus delays, and gave HCPSS Staff the data they needed to make informed and effective routing and scheduling decisions.
20 School Transportation News • NOVEMBER 2023
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