Presented by Transfinder
Done effectively, route optimization can reduce student ride times, improve safety, control operating costs and help transportation teams make better use of their people and equipment.
At Norman Public Schools in Oklahoma, route optimization has become an ongoing process; one supported by Transfinder technology and a willingness to continually reevaluate how the district transports its students.
Norman Public Schools serves approximately 15,000 students, with about 8,000 riding district transportation each day. The department operates 106 buses and ran 73 routes during the previous school year, with plans to add at least three more.
For Alicia Graham, special needs and McKinney-Vento router for Norman Public Schools, the case for optimization can be summed up simply: “Efficiency.”
“Our big thing is efficiency and safety of the students,” she said.
That philosophy extends across both general education and special needs transportation. Graham said she looks for opportunities to place students on general education routes when appropriate or combine multiple schools on a single route when doing so creates a more efficient trip. A central goal is keeping student ride times to 60 minutes or less.
“Optimization is a big factor when, even on our gen ed routes, they use the optimization tools in Routefinder to get that done to ensure that we’re staying within that 60-minute guideline,” Graham said.
James Graham, transportation operations manager for Norman Public Schools, said reducing ride times can have benefits throughout the operation. Less time on the road can mean fewer opportunities for student behavior issues and other incidents, while efficient routing can also reduce fuel consumption, vehicle wear and employee overtime.
“Efficiency and the safety of the students is number one,” he said. “But it does a lot of things for us, not just that one thing.”
The district’s approach has evolved significantly over time. Approximately two years ago, according to Alicia Graham, the transportation team essentially started over.
“We went a clean slate on all of our routing, because the optimization was not there,” she said. “We wiped it out completely and started with a blank slate.”
The problems were visible in the routes themselves. James Graham recalled seeing multiple buses serving the same neighborhoods and traveling to the same schools, sometimes crossing paths unnecessarily. In some cases, buses would pass groups of students only for another bus traveling behind them to make the pickup.
Special needs transportation presented another challenge. Graham recalled buses serving the same school but traveling to opposite sides of town before effectively crisscrossing one another.
“It looked like someone took a bowl of spaghetti and threw it on a map, and that’s what our routes looked like,” he said.
Graham initially conducted a pilot program involving special needs transportation at one high school. The results demonstrated the potential of a more deliberate approach to routing. Previously, he said, some students had been riding for an hour and 45 minutes, and occasionally as long as two hours.
The pilot helped reduce those ride times and contributed to the district’s eventual goal of keeping students aboard buses for no more than 60 minutes. When Alicia Graham later moved from driving into routing, she continued the process, ultimately helping re-optimize the district’s routes.
Technology has supported that evolution. Norman Public Schools uses Transfinder’s Routefinder for routing and optimization, while other Transfinder solutions have become integrated into the broader transportation operation. Drivers use tablets with Wayfinder rather than paper routes, while Stopfinder provides parents with bus location information and notifications. The district also uses Formfinder and has returned to Servicefinder for its maintenance operations after receiving additional training.
The routing improvements are not viewed as a one-time project. Each year, the department looks for additional opportunities to refine its routes.
“Each time we come into a new school year, we optimize even better,” Alicia Graham said. “If it’s shaving off a couple stops or changing where the stop’s actually at.”
The district has also used Transfinder to address school boundary issues that previously contributed to routing complications. Alicia Graham said correcting those boundaries helped the transportation department ensure students were assigned to the proper schools and reduce unnecessary crisscrossing.
When considering new technology, James Graham said the district evaluates the advantages and disadvantages as well as the potential return on investment. The question is not simply whether a new tool offers additional capabilities, but whether its long-term value justifies the investment.
For Norman Public Schools, route optimization follows a similar principle. The goal is continual improvement: examining routes, identifying inefficiencies and using available technology to make transportation safer and more effective.