Client Profile: Indian Prairie Schools

Organization Profile

• Industry: School District
• Location: Aurora, Illinois
• Student Enrollment: 28,000+
• Number of Employees: 1,500+
• Tyler Client Since: 2004
• Tyler Products Used: Versatrans^® Routing and Planning, Tyler Drive^®, e-Link^®, Versatrans My Stop™, Onscreen^®
• Contact: Ronald Johnson, Director of Support Services I www.ipsd.org

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Challenges

Ronald Johnson at Indian Prairie School District 204 knew his district’s existing Versatrans routing solution was capable of both creating additional efficiencies and meeting the evolving expectations of parents and students, and he sought guidance for how an integrated suite could improve his department’s performance. “Our parents were asking for a way to be alerted when a bus would arrive late and to receive timely communication of a bus incident. We saw an opportunity to not only support our parents, but to increase driver safety and route efficiency, which in turn would improve the on-time network and driver retention and recruitment,” said Johnson.

Issues that sometimes arise from hiring substitute drivers were of particular concern to both parents and district officials. Parents did not want a driver unfamiliar with the route using printed stop-by-stop directions while operating the bus, and district officials were left to wonder how substitute drivers becoming lost on routes was impacting the percentage of students arriving to their stops on time.

Solution

Once the decision was made to explore solutions for meeting these needs, the district quickly scheduled a discussion with their trusted partners at Tyler. “We researched Versatrans My Stop, Tyler’s integrated mobile app for parents and students, and decided that this was the best solution, but we did not have a good way to manage sub buses and drivers,” said Johnson. “After talking with our Tyler Technologies support team about our concerns for bus information and data reliability, their recommendation was Tyler Drive.” This on-board tablet solution provides drivers with turn-by-turn audio and visual directions to each stop on their route to enhance safety and provide oversight of all drivers, regardless of their familiarity with the route.

The teams quickly got to work implementing and testing to ensure the smoothest rollout possible. “Our server team worked very closely with our contractor’s tech team and the Tyler team to ensure data was flowing consistently and reliably. We are now fully implemented, and our contractor has incorporated Tyler Drive into their driver training program to ensure all drivers use the tablet effectively on routes. We have a Versatrans My Stop test user group that is reporting improvements to the overall reliability of the data,” he added.

Results

The entire district is experiencing the benefits of a real-time, data-focused routing solution. “Drivers can cover routes without missing a beat! A regular or sub driver can be assigned an open route and receive route direction assistance without jeopardizing safety or route path compliance. We no longer need to fax route sheets to schools to hand out to sub drivers,” said Johnson. “The use of Onscreen every morning and afternoon assists us with real-time GPS tracking, early identification of late routes, and the ability to monitor driver and route activity.”

Indian Prairie parents and students are similarly pleased with the district’s proactive approach to improving their day-to-day experience. Johnson stated, “Parents are no longer experiencing the effects of a sub driver getting lost, which is increasing our on-time network. Parents have access to route information and ETA, and we can notify parents of a delay on their specific route. A year before implementing Tyler Drive, our on-time network was 80.02%. We run almost 300 vehicles driven between 1,200 and 1,250 routes per day. Since the implementation of Tyler Drive, our on-time network is consistently over 97.50%!”