State purchases system to route school buses
10/7/09 | 19 comments

State purchases system to route school buses


By Rich Hewitt
BDN Staff

AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Department of Education has signed a contract with two out-of-state companies for software that will help school districts design and manage student transportation systems.

The five-year, $1.3 million contract with Core Education and Consulting Solutions of Atlanta and Transfinder Corp. of Schenectady, N.Y., will provide school districts in Maine with a way to tailor their transportation systems to meet their specific needs, a move that should reduce transportation costs, according to Education Department spokesman David Connerty-Marin.

The Education Department will cover the costs involved and will make the program available to all school districts throughout the state. The $1.3 million includes the startup costs and maintenance over the five-year period, and will save money for districts that have used transportation software systems in the past and have had to pay those yearly fees, he said. The contract also calls for two two-year extensions.

The idea grew out of the school district reorganization plan, Connerty-Marin said, as a way to help districts that had reorganized deal with transportation in the new, larger districts. Using the new system to design more efficient bus routes also should help save districts money on transportation costs, he said.

“Reorganization was all about finding ways to streamline operations,” he said. “This is a huge one.”

Core will manage the project and develop a Web-enabled platform, or secure Web site, where school districts can tap into Transfinder’s software for student routing and transportation.

There will be no cost to the districts, nor will they have to install new software.

“One of the requirements of the contract was that the state didn’t want the districts to have to install software from us,” said Jay Worth, vice president for technology at Transfinder. “The state did a very good job at developing the requirements for this project. They were looking out for the school districts.”

One of the benefits of this system, according to Connerty-Marin, is that Transfinder’s software can be linked to the student data management software school districts already are using. School districts will be able to use that student information with the new system to design bus routes based on individual parameters they want to set. The savings are expected to come from the more efficient bus routes, which should reduce costs for buses, maintenance and drivers, he said.

“The state is enabling districts to connect to a statewide Web-enabled software solution for their routing and transportation needs at no cost,” said Rick Soules, the Education Department’s state transportation director. “This will eliminate the costly and time-consuming efforts by local school units in procuring the same technology from a variety of vendors.”

The system will be run in 10 pilot sites around the state this fall and should be ready to be rolled out next year. Among the pilot sites are school districts in Bethel, Presque Isle, Fairfield, Berwick, Bridgton, Saco and Farmington.

According to Connerty-Marin, the pilot sites include districts that have not used transportation software systems before, some who have used Transfinder’s system and others that have used similar software systems.

“By the time we’re done we should have adapted to all the scenarios we’ll run into,” he said.

Districts that choose to use the system likely will work on it during the spring and implement it for the 2010 school year, Connerty-Marin said.

Not registered? Click here
E-mail this
Print this
Guidelines for posting on bangordailynews.com

Bangordailynews.com is pleased to offer a forum for readers to react to our stories, discuss them and provide additional information. We are reluctant to delete comments, but do reserve that right for those who abuse our forum. For more on using this site, please see our terms of service.

The primary rule here is pretty simple: Treat others with the same respect you'd want for yourself. What does that mean specifically? Here are some guidelines (see more):

Comments
19 comments on this item
On 10/6/09 at 8:42 PM, scooterj62 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Isn't it great that the DOE can keep finding money to buy tickets for the latest bandwagon. Oh well, it's only OUR money. Don't most districts of any size already have people for this job who actually know the roads and routes.

Report abuse
On 10/6/09 at 9:58 PM, Beelzebubba wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Great. Glad the state can find millions of dollars to track buses that ride on kidney-busting roads.

PAVE MY ROAD, Maine.

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 12:48 AM, schoonerdog wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

I would like to see the actual "savings" in 5 years. This is the last we will ever hear of this. In 5 years there will be better software that will "save" money, at a price tag of x millions.

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 1:53 AM, JWBooth wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

$1.3-million to validate that the locals already knew what they were doing. Susan Gendron, do the taxpayers a favor. Drop to your knees and break out the ceremonial knives.

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 6:51 AM, bmaturin wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Yeah, you should see how great theeEducation software the state is making all school districts use is. Its called Infinite Campus and it is terrible.

Get on the state contract gravytrain if your software company cant make it in the "real world".

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 7:00 AM, DrChuck wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

My GPS tries to send me down roads that are closed in the winter and to turn off overpasses to the street below. Some districts will try it, get a good laugh at the results, and never use it again. Another fine wast of money.

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 7:56 AM, Bangorian wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Let's hope this works a little better than the computer system the State bought for DHHS a few years back - how many millions of dollars did that waste on that deal?

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 8:00 AM, Gardengal51 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Gives a new outlook on TABOR...............

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 8:46 AM, pcme2000 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

What a waste of freaking money. Come on this is totally a crazy way to spend state money.

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 9:01 AM, tomthompson_1 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Just unbelievable really, just unbelievable.

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 9:50 AM, MaineAuntie wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Great, now that the State is "saving" the local districts money, I'm sure they'll cut the budgets even further. And oh, by the way, "why aren't you performing to our expectations?" Maybe because they keep adding mandates and cutting money! IDIOTS!!

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 10:04 AM, fmrmti wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

That is precisely what this is for, MaineAuntie...they are hoping to drive offsets in education aid to the towns.

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 11:37 AM, ElectraGlide wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Tabor is looking better an better every dang day.

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 11:49 AM, HGignoux wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

So next year when our school district is forced to use this software to route the school buses will I have to drive my daughter a mile down the road each day to leave her where the software thinks we live as compared to where we have lived for the last 16+ years?

Unfortunately the underlying data on addresses in much of rural Maine is not accurate, in our case by about a mile. Ask any truck driver that is routed by these software systems in rural Maine. It is not Transfinder that is the problem but the underlying GIS data sources that are inaccurate.

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 1:19 PM, WinFromOOB wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

"Least Cost Routing" software has been around for many years. It is very effective. If you are not familiar with it, you should not comment.

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 2:53 PM, caveman wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Ok Win says it works, that's good; but not good enough to see a cost savings/benefit in five years. Sorry! Local drivers with local knowledge are the core of this industry.

Tabor: against it 100%; but if it's shoved down our throats we live with it. Who picks the programs for these spending sprees?

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 5:44 PM, Sledman wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

One 'great' thing about state politicians is every day they redefine idiocracy.

Report abuse
On 10/7/09 at 9:25 PM, MaineTaxpayer wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

....“said Jay Worth, vice president for technology at Transfinder. “The state did a very good job at developing the requirements for this project. They were looking out for the school districts.”.”....

Isn't that nice that the vendor is complimenting the contractual requirements for the project? I'm curious to know if there were any performance guarantees required in this contract. One obvious one comes to mind - if the software doesn't produce savings equal to at least the cost of the software, then the software vendor should have to reimburse the difference. That would give them an incentive to provide realistic savings.

Perhaps a reporter could ask if this was part of the "very good job at developing the requirements for this project".

Report abuse
On 10/8/09 at 5:23 AM, acadian wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Whatever happened to that ten million or so dollar's a few years back the State of Maine paid for that D.H.S computer system that never worked? Is this the same outfit under a different name? The State of Maine's leadership maintains no fiscal policy or financial responsibility. If someone did not deliver ten million dollars of anything we paid for, to any of us, we would be courtward bound. This is an inside job all the way...follow the money.

Finally, will this software help more of our young people find their way to the state line after graduation?...oh I forgot they do that just fine on their own.

TABOR

Report abuse
You must be logged in to post a comment. click here to log in.

Powered by: Creative Circle Advertising Solutions, Inc.