District’s Buses Travel Nearly 4 million Miles Each School Year
Twice a day Rutherford County Schools dispatches 268 buses that transport 24,701 of the district’s nearly 45,000 students to and from school.
Those buses travel 19,268 miles every day or 385,360 miles a month, which totals nearly 4 million miles every school year.
And, as Rutherford County continues to be among the fastest growing counties in the country, those numbers continue to increase.
That entire undertaking is orchestrated by a six-person staff — including a transportation supervisor, Mike Snell, and five assistants — working from a central dispatch room at Rutherford County Schools’ Central Office from as early as 6 a.m. until 5 p.m. and sometimes later.
“Rutherford County is growing fast,” said Wanda Barnett, who coordinates bus routes for the transportation department through a program called Edulog. “It’s hard to keep up.”
Snell added, “Times are changing.”
One such change is the addition of live GPS capabilities on every bus, which came online last school year.
The GPS signal is transmitted by Verizon cell towers from each bus back to central dispatch and displayed on a large monitor in the transportation department.
In addition to live tracking, which indicates whether the bus is on time or behind schedule — it provides the transportation department with data telling them everything from bus speed and how long a bus stopped to whether its emergency flashers were turned on and the stop arm engaged.
“You can see if they deviated from the planned route,” said Snell, who added, “It can really help us with efficiency … when they are in a time of need.”
For example, if a bus has been involved in an accident, is experiencing mechanical failure or a passenger is undergoing a medical emergency, the transportation department can communicate detailed information with authorities, even if they have little or no communication with the driver.
The district has also purchased computer software — EduTracker and Run Editor — that is used to examine historical data, Barnett said.
They can look at any one bus, one particular stop, or compare data from the past 30 days or an entire school year.
“It generates a report telling you that information,” Barnett said.
“We use it for many things,” Snell said, “like our ATLAS transportation.”
ATLAS is the district’s program for students who are displaced.
One valuable piece of data is the tracking of the total miles driven by each bus.
Snell said that unlike districts who own their buses and house them at a bus barn, Rutherford County Schools contracts with bus owners, and so the buses are housed in various locations throughout the county.
The live GPS lets them know where those buses are at all times, which provides the means to see where buses travel prior to beginning its route. That allows the department to make changes — such as adding or subtracting stops based on students transferring or relocating within the county — and identify the most efficient routes.
“Sometimes (drivers) make changes … because of something they saw,” Snell said.
The new Run Editor program, which is currently being implemented, will help to streamline the process of updating routes.
