New software helps manage school buses
August 20, 2008
By Laura Geggel
The school district’s parking lot contains six new buses. The new vehicles have several features, including pointed-down exhaust pipes that help dissipate fumes toward the road. Photo by Laura Geggel
The next time Jim Garhart, the school district’s director of transportation, receives a call from a parent asking about a lost mitten a child left on a bus, the answer will only be one or two mouse clicks away.
This fall, the district is implementing VersaTrans, software that could improve the whole transportation department.
Many parents don’t know their child’s bus or route number, but if a transportation employee enters the child’s name into the VersaTrans system, that information will be readily available and - presto - the missing mitten can be found.
The Snoqualmie Valley School District bought VersaTrans for about $30,000 for the 2000-01 school year, but they didn’t have the technology or the funding to implement it until now, Garhart said.
VersaTrans communicates with Skyward, a student database software used by the district. Working with Skyward, VersaTrans allows the transportation department to examine every student address and calculate the most efficient bus route.
“Before it was done manually,” said Crystal Green, transportation secretary. “There were very few route changes year to year because of that.”
Many middle-school and high-school students will still share bus routes, but the end product will reduce the amount of time students spend commuting to and from school.
Using FleetVision, another software component, the department can track the miles, route time, student load and maintenance checkups for every bus in its fleet. If a bus needs a new part, many of the parts can be ordered online - cutting out extra costs and time delays from middlemen who used to assist the district in bus maintenance, Garhart said.
How does VersaTrans compare to the old system?
“There’s no comparison,” said Dick Casperson, district mechanic and shop foreman. “And I’ve been here 20 years.”
TripTracker, another component of the software, processes all fieldtrip and athletic bus requests. Now, requests for fieldtrips will be sent online to the principal for approval and then to the department of transportation. Before, teachers and coaches had to file requests manually - a lengthy process for all involved.
Garhart said VersaTrans has more components that the transportation department is interested in buying, once funds become available. The VersaTrans e-Link component, for example, would allow parents to track their children’s buses through a password-protected Web site.
Transportation officials will continue to do their best to save money, Garhart said. Last year, for example, he noticed two classes from different schools wanted to visit the planetarium at Bellevue Community College. He asked the two classes to coordinate their fieldtrips on the same day, an idea that saved the district time and money.
“We’re trying to be more efficient because of the fuel price and budget constraints,” Garhart said.
The transportation department is growing in other areas, too.
Using part of the 2006 $2.6 million transportation levy, the school district purchased six new 2007 buses from Thomas Built Buses. The new buses have improved camera systems - one in the front and one in the back with an ‘event button’ the driver can press if a disturbance occurs on the bus. The driver can go directly to the bookmarked video instead of fast-forwarding through the whole tape to find the incident.
The cameras can record in color and have a night vision option, which could help catch nighttime vandals.
The transportation department takes the buses to Snoqualmie’s local Wentz Electronics to install the bus’ equipment.
The new $110,000 buses also have improved emission standards. The exhaust pipes point down toward the ground, which helps dissipate the heat toward the roadway. That way, pedestrians walking behind a bus will not get a hot blast of fumes in their face.
The transportation department plans to buy four new buses for the 2008-09 school year. The district currently has 54 large and small buses.
Reporter Laura Geggel can be reached at 392-6434 x221 or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.
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