For Hoover City Schools in Alabama, the challenge of transporting thousands of students safely and efficiently is a complex daily undertaking. With a fleet of 163 buses, 219 daily routes, and more than 150 staff including drivers, aides, mechanics, and office personnel, Hoover’s Transportation Department operates at a scale similar to a small transit agency. According to Brad S. Hayn, Ed.S., director of transportation, the key to keeping the system running smoothly, even with driver shortages, lies in relentless optimization.
“We finished the year with 11 and a half open routes that were never filled all year,” Hayn said. “But with our optimization and what we’ve done locally and all of that, we’ve never missed a route because of the things that we do on a daily basis and the great people we have.”
To take that optimization even further, Hoover City Schools recently implemented Transfinder’s suite of transportation software solutions, including Routefinder PLUS, Wayfinder, Stopfinder, and Viewfinder. Though the partnership began only in early 2025, Hayn said the district is already seeing benefits from the platform’s routing intelligence and integration capabilities.
A Data-Driven Journey Toward Efficiency
Hayn stepped into his role in June 2024, bringing years of experience as a high school administrator overseeing large operations and construction projects. One of his first initiatives was to evaluate all district vendors, launching a nine-month review of potential routing software providers.
“I wanted to work with somebody who was going to be a partner; not just a vendor, but part of the family,” he said. “And the second thing I was really looking for was a vendor that could take us to the next level with their platform, with the key truly being who could help us optimize.”
Hayn and his team narrowed the field down to three finalists and formed a selection committee that included route supervisors, drivers, and central office personnel. Ultimately, Transfinder’s technology, customer service, and route optimization tools stood out.
“One of the areas we looked at was if we have to make changes to a route and it’s 1:00 pm or 1:30 pm, and we need to combine two routes in order to get all those kids home for the day,” Hayn said. “Through the optimization tools, it’s automatically going to be pushed out through Wayfinder to those tablets. That was a huge thought process for us.”
A Dual-Year Rollout for Maximum Impact
Once the decision was made, Hoover signed the Transfinder contract in February 2025 and received access to the system in mid-March. To manage the transition efficiently, Hayn split the department’s routing team: assigning one supervisor to continue managing the current school year with the previous system, and another to begin building the 2025-26 routes in Routefinder PLUS.
“By the time we got to the end of May when we finished the school year, we had all of our routes from this year already in Routefinder PLUS,” he said. “Which has put us in a great position to work on those optimization tools and to pilot Wayfinder for the summer.”
The district is now using Transfinder’s system to reanalyze routes for efficiencies, focusing on right-side pickups, neighborhood stops, and legacy routing decisions that may no longer be optimal.
Building a Culture of Resilience and Responsiveness
For Hayn, route optimization is about embedding adaptability into the department’s culture.
“As a Transportation Department, you’re going to have bumps in the road,” he said. “You’re going to have people call out at the last second. And I think the more responsive we can be to those needs of the community as well as the needs of the department, and quickly make adjustments… it just becomes part of our culture.”
He envisions a future where these tools are so deeply embedded in daily operations that handling last-minute changes is second nature.
“No hiccup, no bump in the road is too great for us, that we are just in a position that we’re going to overcome, that we’re just going to make it happen,” Hayn said. “Because ultimately our number one goal is to transport students safely to and from school every day.”
Looking Ahead
With the district’s 2025-26 routes already mapped in Transfinder and the team preparing for full deployment of the Wayfinder app on bus tablets, Hoover City Schools is setting a new benchmark for proactive routing management.
“What we’re doing now is running all those routes, trying to optimize them, finding inconsistencies of, ‘Hey, we’ve done this historically, but can we do this a little bit better?’” Hayn said.
In a field where every mile and minute counts, Hoover City Schools’ partnership with Transfinder shows how strategic technology adoption can elevate transportation operations and better serve the community.