Four Things you Must Know Before Using School Bus Routing Software

Planning routes manually makes your task complex, time-consuming and inefficient. If you are still using pen and paper for your route planning then it’s time to stop. You can easily switch to a routing software and manage your planning process efficiently.

Route planning is an important part of industries like, transport, logistics, BPO/ITES and institutions where they rely on fleet of vehicles. In schools, route planning plays an important role where number of school buses are run on a daily basis. Optimization of school bus routes is the need of hour as there is a growing number of students every year. Managing routes for multiple vehicle simultaneously can be a hectic job for the school transport managers. Automating routing plans helps transport managers to do their day-to-day routing tasks and manage fleet vehicles efficiently. The various features in a routing software helps you create new routes, stoppages, better routes and vehicle assignments in a much better way.

Let’s check the disadvantages of manual route planning.

Manual school bus routing –

While planning school bus routes, school transport management system refers to maps, students’ addresses, available bus stops etc. so that they can plan the most optimized school bus route. No doubt manual route planning looks easy but the results are uncertain, ambiguous, un-optimized, time taking and redundant. The data needed for route planning is huge and its thorough assessment every time can be a cumbersome task.

Manual school bus routing –

Planning routes manually is challenging and time consuming. Figuring out the routes, stoppages, and student address is not an easy task. In manual routing transport managers refers to outdated maps try to match with the student addresses and available bus stops which provides poor, uncertain, ambiguous, unoptimized results. It should be planned and executed efficiently to remain relevant with frequent changes and should ensure minimal travel time.

The basic points to be considered for good route planning are –

• Safe route with minimum traffic
• Easy walking distance from bus stop to child’s home
• Ride time
• Approximate fuel consumption and maintenance cost
• Road condition
• Government transportation guidelines
• Availability of pick-up points

Automated School Bus Routing: Four truths that you must know –

• By automating, you can make your existing system efficient, transparent, productive and cost efficient. Planning your route becomes much easier with a route planning software. It is the perfect solution which adapts to your customized requirements and scalable to meet a wide range of scenarios.
• The routing software is aided by the GPS technology which thoroughly analyses the traffic patterns and effective routes. It also tracks the number of students from nearby areas and student addresses by using maps. It comes in very handy for the drivers in case of road-blocks and traffic diversions.
• The routing software consists of multiple features which can be operated in any mobility platforms. The Real Time Tracking allows the transport admin to monitor and track the bus in real-time which ensures the updates and safety of students travelling in the bus. With the Trip History feature admin can easily track the number of trips and also calculate kilometer’s travelled, stoppages, idling, and average speed.
• As a whole, automated routing planning guarantees you the most efficient route planning and helps you in effective time management. Route planning software helps you deliver the best service and makes your clients happy.