![]() “That’s why we offer to build a baseline routing solution for free, to show how we can provide true optimality while actually improving service.” “I understand the skepticism when districts don’t believe that,” Hanlon added. Most of our work is with districts who use market-leading software, and yet we still outperform their status quo by as much as 30 percent.” Maybe they can do it at the route level but not across the entire district. “What these districts don’t understand is that their software platforms are not actually capable of optimizing their entire fleets like we can. “We hear from school systems all the time who tell us their routes are already optimized, usually because they’re using expensive software or because they brought in consultants who conducted a study,” said John Hanlon, CEO of AlphaRoute and the former COO of Boston Public Schools. Routing specialists and their software can convert a set of bus stops into a single, optimal bus route, and they can do that one route at a time, one school at a time, but this is an incredibly time-consuming process that does almost nothing for optimizing the district as a whole. School district routing teams are among the smartest problem-solvers in public education, but it is not humanly possible to build optimal districtwide route-sets without software and algorithms capable of meeting that challenge. Instead, it may only get worse, as the average bus driver age continues trending upward and as the on-demand economy continues to grow and pull drivers into higher-paying jobs.ĭistricts need a solution that can change with the times, and they need to be prepared for the shortage to continue into next year and beyond. It did not come about solely because of Covid-19 and it will not go away when Covid-19 is over. Transportation teams know that the shortage has been growing in severity in recent years. If we can just get through this year, then we’ll be fine. If an all-out focus on recruiting isn’t generating the desired results, then why do some districts seem so hyper-focused on it? AlphaRoute has shown that optimizing routes is an even more effective strategy to confront the shortage, allowing districts to transport more students with fewer drivers… and building these solutions in less time than it takes to conduct one job fair.Ģ. A Florida transportation director recently described recruiting programs as “CDL mills,” with many new hires getting their CDL and then promptly leaving for higher-paying jobs. Many districts report hiring drivers at a higher rate than usual but losing them just as fast. But spending time and resources on recruiting efforts alone is not the best or only thing that can be done. All we can do is try to recruit more drivers.ĭistricts everywhere would benefit from having more drivers. 5 Driver Shortage Myths Debunked by AlphaRouteġ. ![]() Doing so has allowed them to identify and debunk the following five myths which are exacerbating an already difficult situation. ![]() and Canada and have followed the driver shortage crisis as closely as anyone. – Rob Weinheimer, Director of Transportation, Columbus City SchoolsĪlphaRoute staff have talked to transportation directors across the U.S. “Mission accomplished! Insights from AlphaRoute allowed us to consolidate routes from 704 to 558 and get all eligible students routed to a bus. Their award-winning approach converts routing plans into math problems which can be solved objectively, and the solutions provide breathing room amidst the driver shortage: AlphaRoute’s solutions often use 10% to 30% fewer buses than the status quo, as Columbus, Ohio found out earlier this year. One company is exposing the myths and bringing hope to transportation departments in the form of lower bus counts and reduced staff burnout.ĪlphaRoute uses MIT-based algorithms to optimize districtwide bus fleets. This is not a myth.īut there are myths related to the shortage, and they are making a difficult year even more challenging. The driver shortage is hurting school bus operations everywhere. This content is brought to you by AlphaRoute.
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