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Using the Web to deliver timely, accurate information

Snapshot

Company: Christina School District
Type of Operation: Student Transportation
Number of Students Transported: 16,316
Number of Vehicles: 250, and 46 contracted
Products Used: Trapeze MapNet, Trapeze MapNet-Web

Business Problem

Each Fall and throughout the school year, Christina School District (Newark, Delaware), was besieged by calls from parents looking for accurate bus information or locating their children.

“We were using monthly student locator reports that we published using (a spreadsheet application), which resulted in out-dated information being released to parents,” remembers Transportation Specialist Charlotte Walker. “Or we were receiving hundreds of phone calls to our transportation offices asking the same questions over and over.”

Goals

To reduce the number of calls to both schools and the transportation office, and to provide more accurate information, the district wanted to share up-to-date student bus data on a password-protected website, personalized for each user.

The district also wanted a way for school administration staff to look up and print stop details, student lists, routes and driver manifests. District staff were looking for ways to prepare ad hoc reports on activities, buses, drivers and vehicle maintenance using internal and external data.

Solution

Christina School District had been using Trapeze MapNet to manage its school bus routing and schedules. To deliver web-based information using its existing student and routing databases, the district chose the MapNet-Web module.

Results

MapNet-Web gives each school in the district access to large amounts of data, while reducing paperwork and improving call-handling times.

Administrative staff can now log on to view student bus data, real-time weather and traffic reports, including possible bus delays. They can also look up and print stop details, student lists, routes and driver manifests.

The “What’s New” section of the site provides the latest information at a glance inlcuding new stops and staff bulletins. Sending general transportation updates used to involve calling or faxing each school, individually. Now it’s available in real time on the Internet.

Athletic Directors in the district use the site to assign students to late night, weekend and after school shuttle bus routes, a task which used to be difficult after school secretaries went home. Schools can also lookup an address to see if a stop has been assigned and print their own bus routes for reference or to give to substitute drivers.

Assigned offices can check specialized student data including linguistic and alternative program information. The district estimates that calls from schools to the transportation office have been reduced by 10 to15 percent and it expects even greater reductions as all schools come online with the system.

Bottom Line

With Internet access growing exponentially, the Internet is an ideal platform for disseminating critical information in real time. The district is planning to customize additional screens with email addresses, pictures and employee photos. “Everyone is excited about how easy this software is to use,” says Walker, “and how well it puts the right information in the right hands.”