Oakland Schools in Michigan utilizes about 700 buses to transport nearly 70,000 students that attend 28 school districts within the county.
Another challenge was related to the new AI routing
software. Pollio said the district added 5,000 new stops into the software after routes were already created, but district officials did not add in the time needed for a bus driver to complete each stop before proceeding to the next. The delayed route times created a domino effect on the next tiers. “We did not have a way for parents to know where their child’s bus was,” Pollio added. Jefferson County switched routing software to Edulog and implemented the company’s parent app to notify parents of bus location and arrival time. Another challenge, he said, is drivers were not pro-
vided adequate time to practice their routes before the first day. Long term, he noted that bus routes need to be revamped with the ultimate goal of implementing RFID cards that track when the students board and egress. The district transports about 60,000 students to school and home again every day to over 150 campuses, but Chris Perkins, chief operations officer, said the service is being provided with 40 percent fewer drivers this year. The district cut its routes to 650 from 950 over the
20 School Transportation News • OCTOBER 2023
past couple of years, and Pollio noted that it’s getting to a point where districts are going to have to make decisions on who gets transported and when due to the severe lack of drivers. “Obviously, we’re going to continue to recruit bus driv-
ers, work to increase pay,” Pollio added, noting that if the school bus driver shortage isn’t addressed nationwide more problems are going to be felt across the nation. Later in August, the school bus driver shortage struck again nearly 600 miles east in Howard County Public Schools in Ellicott City, Maryland. On the first day of school, Aug. 28, school bus contractor Zum informed the district that it could not cover 20 routes due to driver callouts. “While the contractor currently has drivers in the training pipeline and is working to address the vacan- cies, they are asking families who are served by the following routes to make alternative arrangements for your students to get to and from school for the remain- der of the week,” HCPPS stated. The 20 routes were then listed for families to reference.
At this writing, three of those routes remain canceled. In June, Zum announced it had entered a five-year trans-
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