School Bus Routing Case Study: From Manual Chaos to Automated Efficiency
Farmington Municipal Schools serves 19 award-winning schools across New Mexico, including one Pre-School Academy, 10 elementary schools, four middle schools, and four high schools. Managing transportation for this diverse district posed significant operational challenges—until they discovered EZRouting‘s comprehensive school bus routing software software.
Download the Farmington Municipal School Bus Routing Case Study
Transportation Pain Points: Why Farmington Needed Change
Manual Bus Routing Created Operational Bottlenecks
Before implementing modern bus routing software, Farmington Municipal Schools struggled with time-consuming, inefficient transportation management processes that impacted their entire district.
Critical Pain Points:
- Inefficient Route Building Process: Farmington’s legacy system required drivers to manually build routes by entering individual bus stops and constantly renumbering them. According to Billy Huish, Director of Transportation at Farmington Municipal Schools, “Drivers had to manually build their routes by entering bus stops and renumbering them. The process took too long, especially since some drivers had a hard time using the software.”
- Limited Technical Accessibility: Their outdated system was too complex for many drivers to use effectively, creating dependency on a small number of technically savvy staff members and causing delays when route adjustments were needed.
- Manual Activity Trip Planning: Every activity trip—including field trips, sporting events, and other special outings—required manual coordination andplanning, consuming valuable administrative time and increasing the risk of overlooked details such as lunch requests or transportation requirements.
- No Real-Time Parent Communication: Parents had no visibility into bus locations or delays, leading to anxiety and frequent phone calls to the transportation office asking about their children’s whereabouts.
- Geographic Challenges with Rural Communities: Serving families in geographically remote areas, including Navajo Nation where traditional street addresses don’t exist, was nearly impossible with conventional routing systems.
- Inability to Optimize Special Needs Routes: The district lacked tools to analyze and consolidate routes for special needs students, resulting in unnecessarily long bus rides for vulnerable children.
As Huish candidly stated: “While [the previous software] automated some efforts, it was still a pain.”
The Solution: Pathwise’s EZRouting School Bus Route Planning Software
Discovery at a Critical Moment
Huish discovered EZRouting’s student transportation management platform at an industry tradeshow. The initial demonstration immediately revealed solutions to Farmington’s specific challenges.
“Within a few minutes of the first demo, I put the phone on mute and said, ‘Wow. Everything they were showing us was exactly what we needed. I had never seen anything like it in my 40 years in school transportation,'” recalls Huish.
Rapid Implementation with Expert Support
Farmington selected two key components of the EZRouting Suite’s school bus routing software platform:
- EZRouting Core (formerly TravelTracker-Routing) for comprehensive bus routing
- EZActivityTrips (formerly TravelTracker-Trips) for field trip management
The implementation exceeded expectations with an aggressive timeline that allowed Farmington to prepare during summer months for the upcoming school year.
“The implementation team was a joy to work with,” says Huish. “They understood our request for such an aggressive go-live target date and committed to helping us hit it.”
Implementation Highlights:
- Responsive support team (under 1-hour response time)
- Custom feature development for district-specific needs
- Comprehensive training adapted to staff learning styles
- Partnership-focused approach rather than a vendorclient relationship
“From the time we started the onboarding process to the time we went live, the whole process just couldn’t have been better,” explains Huish. “If we ever had a question or a request, the EZRouting services team always got back to us within an hour or less.”
Results: How the EZRouting Bus Routing Software Solved Farmington’s Challenges
Pain Point 1: Manual Route Building → SOLVED with Intelligent Automation
The Solution: EZRouting’s school bus route planning software enables users to instantly look up bus stops, compare them to home addresses, and identify the closest buses for route consolidation—all through an intuitive interface.
The Impact: Route creation time reduced dramatically. Staff can now make route adjustments in minutes rather than hours, without requiring technical expertise.
Pain Point 2: Geographic Limitations → SOLVED with Pin Drop Technology
The Solution: EZRouting’s bus routing platform includes advanced geolocation features specifically designed for areas without traditional addresses.
“Our routes include Navajo Nation, which is very rural and doesn’t use actual addresses,” says Huish. “EZRouting offers a pin drop function, so our drivers can simply drop a pin on a house as far as 60 miles away to plan their routes. We couldn’t have done this using our past approach.”
The Impact: Full transportation coverage for all families, regardless of location or address availability.
Pain Point 3: Excessive Special Needs Transport Time → SOLVED with Route Optimization
The Solution: The district used the school bus routing software to analyze all special needs routes and identify consolidation opportunities.
The Impact: Reduced time that vulnerable students spend on buses while maintaining service quality and safety standards.
Pain Point 4: Parent Communication Gaps → SOLVED with Student Transportation Management Features
The Solution: EZRouting’s student transportation management with parent notifications enables real-time communication from bus drivers to families.
The Impact: Parents receive automated updates about delays and precise arrival times, dramatically reducing anxiety and phone calls to the transportation office.
Pain Point 5: Field Trip Coordination Chaos → SOLVED with Automated Workflows
The Solution: EZActivityTrips integrates activity trip planning with automated notifications to all stakeholders, including food services for lunch requests.
“Any user can add details or reminders for an activity trip through the EZActivityTrips solution,” Huish explains. “Now Farmington’s food services love that if a group is going out, the request for sack lunches is now automated. Nothing is overlooked, and no one has to call the Central Kitchen.”
The Impact: Streamlined field trip coordination with zero missed details and no manual communication steps.
Pain Point 6: Complex Reporting Requirements → SOLVED with Intuitive Analytics
The Solution: Built-in reporting tools that require no technical knowledge to operate. “We were able to pull report(s) without any technical knowledge. We could not have done this in the past,” says Huish.
The Impact: Data-driven decision making accessible to all transportation staff, not just technical experts.
Why School Districts Choose the EZRouting Suite Bus Routing Platform
Comprehensive School Bus Route Planning Software Features:
- Intelligent route optimization that considers distance, time, and student needs
- Real-time GPS tracking with automated parent notifications
- Geographic flexibility including pin-drop functionality for non-traditional addresses
- Integrated activity trip management with automated stakeholder notifications and approval workflows
- User-friendly interface requiring minimal technical expertise
- Robust reporting capabilities for compliance and optimization
- Custom feature development based on district-specific requirements
Partnership-Driven Approach:
“Pathwise offers the right products and services at a price you just can’t beat. But our experience with them has grown to the point where we don’t see Pathwise as a vendor—we now think of them as family. I’ve never had such an experience with any other company,” concludes Huish.
“I had never seen anything like the EZRouting solutions in my 40 years in school transportation.” — Billy Huish, Director of Transportation, Farmington Municipal Schools.
Why School Districts Choose the EZRouting Suite Bus Routing Platform
Farmington Municipal Schools’ success demonstrates how the right student transportation management platform can solve complex operational challenges while improving service for students, parents, and staff.
From rural routes spanning 60+ miles to automated parent notifications to streamlined field trip coordination, EZRouting’s school bus route planning software delivers measurable improvements across every aspect of transportation operations.
Ready to revolutionize your transportation system?
Schedule a live demo and discover why districts across the country choose EZRouting’s bus routing platform for their student transportation management needs. Visit http://www.pathwisek12.com/ to learn more about how our school bus routing software can address your district’s unique challenges.
Download the Farmington Municipal School Bus Routing Case Study