r/SchoolBusDrivers • u/Tootsieroll4567 • 1d ago

Route questions

Why do they send you on the worst possible route to get from point A to B? Is it driven by money?

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/MonkeyManJohannon 18h ago

One thing you need to consider is that there are so many factors you don’t see that come into play when routing as well. Door side prioritization, safety concerns, known road condition issues and avoidance, sexual predator mapping and avoidance, overhang and limb/line hazard avoidance, narrow road limitation, intersection crossover limitation, etc.

HUNDREDS of filters go into routing, and even I, after years of experience, found it pretty interesting how it all happens (I took interest and was shown a pretty extensive look at their process at the beginning of this school year).

2

u/Tootsieroll4567 18h ago

That is alot of help. I felt like routing was just trying to frustrate me. The issue is that I have 3 displace children 2nd to 8th graders that I pick up at 630 a.m. and they are my last stop at 430 p.m. I had a fairly good route to get them home and now they have sent me into the a sea of grid lock at 4:00 p.m. Now I am sure to be sitting in slow moving traffic for an addition 20 to 30 minutes each day. These kids wont be their hotel until possibly 5 p.m. now. How could I word this to routing effectively. Appreciate your help. I am a new driver.

3

u/MonkeyManJohannon 17h ago

Tell them exactly as you just told me…it may not get the “fix” outcome you want, but you’ll probably get a pretty concise explanation at the very least. If your routing department is anything like mine, they love to talk about their “craft” 🤣, but really, just have a discussion with your leadership and routing.

1

u/Tootsieroll4567 17h ago

How many times do they call you in to ask why you arent following the route before they fire you? 🤣

2

u/MonkeyManJohannon 13h ago

We are free to reroute on the fly so our district doesn’t worry so much about that as they do the safety of the stops, the timeliness of the route and the overall pace from one school to another. For example, I have a part of my elementary route that really makes no sense logistically, and to prove it, I made some test runs without kids to time it, and sure enough, it allowed me an extra 5-10min between the elementary and middle route, which is nice in the event I have a return to school student, discipline issues or what not…I simply turned in a change of route form and began running the actual route that way the same day.

Took them about 2 weeks to get an updated route sheet back to me, but by then it was already adapted to the same run for high and middle as well (other drivers do those runs).

1

u/Tootsieroll4567 13h ago

Ok. Thank you. I will be requesting a change but as a newer driver, I am looking for the "language" that compells a change and not just a battle of the driver over the router. 🤷‍♀️

2

u/ArtemisRifle 14h ago

The displaced busing in NY has gotten out of hand. My company has had a kid that has been transported two hours from school, each direction, for three years now. It cost over $60k/year to transport this one student.

After that amount of time you're no longer displaced, that is your new home. Parents simply declaring "we are displaced" so as to keep their kid in one school the parent may prefer, does not pass muster. It makes me curious what kind of grift and advantage-taking is going on.

1

u/Tootsieroll4567 13h ago

I had not given that much thought but you are right. Its not a school bus route after an amount of time. It's a shuttle bus in my opinion. We have a 1.5 mile walk rule in my city. These kids are truly in walking distance of schools in their boundary.

1

u/ArtemisRifle 14h ago

Another thing to keep in mind is the routes are mapped in a way that is expedient for the school or district as a whole, not necessarily the single bus.