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School Boards convert to new Ministry approved transportation software in record time.
Toronto,
ON – October 30, 2001 - Summer was no vacation for the joint transportation
service
of Brant Haldimand-Norfolk Catholic District School Board and Grand
Erie District School Board. They spent
their summer indoors converting existing transportation data into the new
BUSTOPS transportation software.
This
conversion to the Ministry approved BUSTOPS transportation software program was
"one
of
the fastest BUSTOPS program implementations ever for a large board” says Ken
Mitchell, President of MicroAnalytics Logistics Management Ltd. of Toronto.
A
project team of Board and MicroAnalytics staff accomplished a mountain of work
in a minimum amount of time. Not only
was all the data converted from the previous computer routing system; but the
new BUSTOPS program was used to prepare modified routes and new routes for
school startup. Then board staff used
BUSTOPS to produce letters for parents with the necessary route
information. All of this was done for
some 25,000 students and 70 schools in a time period of 10 weeks.
School
opened on September 4th with drivers having BUSTOPS route reports of
times and stop locations accurate to within 5 minutes on all routes.
In
June 2001, Ed Tuokko of Grand Erie District School Board made the decision to
convert Brant county student route information to BUSTOPS Student
Transportation Management System. With
the help of MicroAnalytics, they developed an aggressive work time line. A
pilot project in 5 schools to establish data conversion methods and to develop
and test procedures for widespread implementation was completed in two weeks.
The board immediately approved Phase II – the
“roll-out” of the system to 62 more schools.
Phase
II employed the experience gained in the pilot to achieve full
implementation. The program was used to
automatically select the closest stop for each student. Board staff examined the location of every
student and stop on the computerized map to ensure that safety precautions (for
various grade levels especially younger children) were being maintained. The
second phase included letters to parents with pick up information and routes
printed for the bus operators. Phase II was completed within schedule including
extra work done to include Eligibility codes assigned to the map database. These codes assist with the assignment of
students to stops and to display what school a student should be attending
based on grade and street location.
Essentially this task is “teaching the computer” (software program) what
is the acceptable safe match up for students on each block of each street. The time investment by board staff pays off
as the software stores this matching logic and the stop assignment becomes an
automatic function for future students.
Phase II concluded with a project status report to the Directors of
Education of Brant Haldimand-Norfolk Catholic District School Board and Grand
Erie District School Board.
The
school startup was achieved with computerized information in place as planned
and within the project budget. “Tuokko and his staff need to be congratulated
on their dedication, hard work and focused decision making that made this
possible” says Mitchell.
Peter
Moffat Director of Education for the Grand Erie District School Board reported
that start up was smoother this year than last year. Both Moffat and Gerry Kuckyt the Superintendent of Business and
Treasurer were pleased with the rapid implementation of new software within
budget. Transportation staff reported
that they took fewer phone calls than last September despite the fact that they
opened new schools and had several new school secretaries who are not as
familiar with transportation procedures.
Tuokko
and his staff credit MicroAnalytics with helping them to complete the work in
the allotted time because of their organization, precise time lines, and taking
the time to train them so they understood the tasks at hand. “MicroAnalytics eased our sense of
frustration to complete the work within the time allotted and to deal with
other pressures such as slow hardware Hub and the loss of some key staff.” Tuokko stated “I’m impressed with what I’ve
seen. We liked having Robert our implementation consultant on site and want him
to come back. He spent the necessary time and trained us well”. The board is
looking to proceed with getting BUSTOPS up and running in the total amalgamated
area.
What
next? “There are areas of
transportation where we could be more efficient. Next year BUSTOPS can save us
money” reports Tuokko.
Staff
of the joint transportation service handle the transportation for Brant, Haldimand
and Norfolk counties (both public and catholic boards) consisting of 24,000
transported students out of a total enrollment of 44,000 with a school
transportation budget of $14 million.
Offices are located in Brantford, Ontario.
The
need for software conversion had its origins in the Ontario school board
amalgamations of the late 90’s. It
gained momentum with the ongoing commitment to joint bussing of public and
catholic boards. The final push came
from the announcement last year by the Ministry of the requirement for approved
software for bus transportation optimization.
Many boards found themselves without approved software or with a need to
standardize on one system among the merged boards and between boards providing
joint services.
MicroAnalytics
has produced logistics software since 1984.
The company helped pioneer the development of PC based routing systems
and is recognized as a leading software provider with over 2400 systems
distributed worldwide. BUSTOPS is a
school bus routing and management program that enables districts to conduct
route and run optimization using individual time parameters. School district administrators can perform
redistricting studies, boundary analysis and plan effectively for future
needs. BUSTOPS comes with a
full-featured report generator.
In
addition to BUSTOPS, MicroAnalytics publishes and markets TruckStops, OptiSite
Distribution Planning Model and GeoNet Location Databases. A new product
- emSTOPS
equipment maintenance
- is an Internet database
program that is soon to be launched.
The company operates offices in Arlington, Virginia; Toronto, Ontario
and London, England. Agents in Europe,
South America, South Africa, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and
Singapore represent MicroAnalytics. For
more information on BUSTOPS contact us 416-691-1222 or at info@bustops.com.
MicroAnalytics has web sites of
www.bustops.com,
www.bestroutes.com
and
www.emstops.com.
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