Unified Transportation Software

The Vendor is required to provide unified transportation software system should allow for maintenance, routing, field trips, navigation, and real-time tracking, ensuring enhanced safety, efficiency, and accountability.
- Routing
• User licenses and security
• Ability to create unlimited user accounts with no “per user” license fees
• Ability to define custom role-based permissions for each user account (for example, what areas the user can access and what level of access – read-only, update, etc.)
• Ability to email staff in mass from within the routing portal based on their role
• Ability to email/text staff when route adjustments are made for their assigned routes, which includes the stop location and time
- Mapping
• Includes free map updates at least once a month
• Map updates are provided automatically without user or administrator intervention
• Includes a full map of the country – not limited to a specific county
• Ability to add streets to the map
- Student information
• Ability to integrate with any student information system for nightly data sync
• Includes a dashboard to organize and review daily changes from the sis (student information system)
• Ability to segment and act on distinct types of sis nightly changes by groups (for example, address changes versus school assignment changes versus deletions, etc.)
• Ability to configure pop-up alerts for critical “need to know” student information
• A continuous student record that rolls over student info to the next school year automatically
- Overall functionality
• Ability to make mass edits to large groups of records simultaneously based on filtered criteria (routes, stops, students)
• Automatic backup every 30 minutes for minimal potential data loss
• Ability to work in multiple school year sessions simultaneously
- Routing functionality
• Auto-assign students individually or in mass
• Change the stop sequence and route path by dragging and dropping on a visual map
• Manually override system-generated stop times
• Create multiple sandboxes to experiment with changes without affecting data in the active session
• Auto-generate bus stops based on maximum walking distance
• Includes computer-assisted route consolidation tools with the ability to override suggested changes
• Auto-generate routes using configurable parameters such as maximum distance to the stop, maximum student capacity per bus, maximum time on board, etc.
• Calendar-based scheduling that allows users to define student bus schedules down to the individual day, including weekly/monthly patterns
• Define bus schedule start dates at the individual student level (pre-schedule a student or students)
• Transport students to an unlimited number of addresses
• Provides the ability for a route to be consolidated and dispersed to other routes for immediate emergency coverage due to a breakdown or driver shortage.
• This should be able to be applied to a single date or a date range.
- Communication
• Includes built-in customizable messaging to send email/text alerts to parents, drivers, and school staff that includes stop location and time
• Templated emails that merge routing information, such as stop time and location, into the email.
• Send mass emails or texts based on criteria such as the route, designated bus, school, or stop
• Includes parent app (android/iOS) and web portal parents to receive bus information, receive notifications, track the bus, view ridership history, and request changes
- Ridership and tablets
• Ability to track student ridership data with system-generated QR codes or bar codes
• Parent and district portal with live tracking and notifications
• Audio and visual warnings if a student boards at the wrong stop or on the wrong bus
• Turn-by-turn audio and visual directions from the tablet for routes or field trips
• Visibility of actual GPS route versus planned route
• Ability to re-route the bus with audio and visual adjustments if the bus makes an incorrect turn or diverts from the route
- Dispatch and operations
• Live GPS tracking of vehicle movement while running routes (utilizing tablets or GPS devices)
• Visibility of vehicles that are running behind or late
• Ability to mass communicate to parents and staff for all buses that are running late (including how many minutes late)
• Ability to substitute drivers or vehicles and have the tablets and live GPS tracking (directions, students, etc.) reflect the changes
• View drivers’ schedules using a calendar view
• Break a trip into segments and temporarily assign a segment to other drivers’ routes for a single day or multiple days
• A mobile app to allow drivers to clock in and out for routes
• Instant visibility of which drivers have checked in to run their routes
• Instant search to locate a student at any given time and determine which bus (if any) the student was riding and what time they checked on or off the bus.