Boston Public Schools: New technology to improve busing

Boston Public Schools’ new contract with vendor Veolia Transportation went into effect on July 1. The company is helping BPS use new technology to improve bus timeliness and safety. (Photos courtesy of Boston Public Schools)

On Sept. 4, Boston Public Schools (BPS) started off the school year in the passing lane with its new bus contract and an increased emphasis on technology to make its bus service better.

Some of the new services include a bus app that will allow parents to track their kids’ buses and know exactly where they are on the way to and from school.

According to Carl Allen, BPS transportation director, the new bus contract with Illinois-based Veolia Transportation Inc., which began on July 1, gave BPS the perfect opportunity to ramp up its efforts.

“Technology and the use of it was a key thing we were looking for,” Allen said. “We kind of wanted to change the paradigm of school bus transportation.”

BPS made specific demands when seeking companies for the new contract. These included a target of 95 percent on-time bus performance, twice as much safety training for school bus drivers and more safety supervisors on the road. In addition, the demands also included fuel savings, reductions in overall fleet emissions through environmental technology and an anti-idling plan.

Perhaps most important to parents and school administrators are the plans for regular surveys of parents and schools and ongoing community meetings to listen to feedback and respond to requests.

Organizing the BPS bus system is no easy task. The BPS budget for transportation is close to $100 million for the year. The BPS has a total fleet of about 800 buses. About 700 of them are on the road every day, bringing more than 30,000 students to over 200 schools.

Initially a lot of the new technology will be on the back end of the bus system, helping improve systems such as the one dispatchers use to keep track of buses and make sure they’re on time.

BPS has also created an entirely new system called “Safety Desk,” which Allen describes as similar to 911, that can be used to manage safety issues. In the past, safety issues went through the dispatch and often tied up the lines, causing delays in other areas.

“We are able to operate much more efficiently because of the new technology,” Allen said. “We can respond quicker.”

New software is also being added to improve office functions such as payroll and human resources.

Eventually though, students will see more technology on the school buses, such as devices used to keep track of riders.

For now, the exciting technology change for students and parents is the Where’s My School Bus? app, which allows parents to go to schoolbus.bostonpublicschools.org, log in and find out exactly where their children’s buses are at that exact moment.

“Any parent who has bus registration can just go to the website and set up the app,” said Allen. “Those parents can just log in, enter the student’s identifying information and they will see their student’s bus on the map.”

Any bus changes will automatically be updated into the system. The web-based system works through any browser on computers, mobile phones or tablets.

“They can see all the buses for their students using the app just by logging in once,” Allen said. “There is no need to download anything. All parents need is the link.”

According to Allen, the idea for the app came a few years ago during a snowstorm, when the BPS bus call center was inundated with calls from parents looking for their children on all the delayed buses.

The buses already have GPS in place, so developing a system for the parents was a logical next step.

Last school year, BPS tested the bus app with about 500 parents and used feedback to improve the system.

“I think it really offered the parents a measure of safety,” Allen said. “People that used it were really happy. There was such an enormously positive response we deduced we should roll this out to everybody.”

In addition to the technology improvements, Allen said the other crucial area of improvement for this school year is an increased emphasis on safety. Veolia will double the hours of safety training drivers receive to 80 hours. This includes training dealing with incidents and emergencies, and awareness of driving around cyclists.

The implementation of on-the-road driver training is entirely new for BPS.

Veolia, which offers bus services through about 200 contracts in the United States and Canada, is using its driver-training experience to add this training for BPS. Veolia’s parent company, Veolia Transdev, operates contracts for public transportation for 5,000 city transit authorities in 27 countries.

Alex Roman, general manager of Veolia, said that many of the practices and systems that work well with city and transit bus systems are easily adaptable to a school bus system.

However, Roman also points to the technologies mentioned in the new BPS contract. “One of the things that attracted us to working with Boston Public Schools was their willingness to embrace new technologies,” he said.

Two years ago, BPS started to change its bus-scheduling system and Veolia is building on that change. The first step is adding an “arrival board” to track buses more efficiently and make sure they get going on time.

“We studied that software suite that they are using and that is where we came up with the arrival board,” said Roman. “If buses get started on time they will operate on time and they are much more likely to run on time for the rest of the morning.”

All BPS drivers will now have bus schedules on a tablet with them at all times. “They can much more quickly find the schedule they are looking for as well as get updates as the schedules change, because some of them change daily,” Roman said.

On a twice-daily basis Veolia will also analyze bus-performance data to track how the schedule goes in the morning and afternoon and fix any issues by the next day. Technology will also be used to track customer complaints and response to these complaints, breaking down complaints by details such as cause or location.

“This is the same kind of technology that we use in all of our transit operations,” Roman said.

BPS typically sends a survey to parents about the bus system and Veolia will help automate this process in the future.

Roman said Veolia is thrilled to get the contract with BPS, citing “their approach and interest in changing the paradigm of how the school bus management was provided.” He added, “Our use [of] technology to more efficiently operate the service was a good fit with Boston Public Schools.”

With Veolia, Allen believes BPS has found the company to help set a new high standard in bus service to students and families, and one that is helping the city save money as well.

The company took a BPS-proposed $17 million increase in total transportation costs for this year and came back with a proposal for an increase of only $11 million. BPS officials say the money saved will be used to invest in classrooms.

“We hope that it is going to be a great year,” Allen said. “Even when the buses are on time there is always room for improvement in terms of safety.”