Bay Shore Union Free School District, located on the south shore of Long Island and about 50 miles east of New York City, is a small, diverse district of approximately 6,500 students and 8.9 square miles to cover with school transportation.
Rich Gallagher, director of transportation and purchasing agent for Bay Shore, used Transfinder starting in another school district. In 2001, Gallagher began at Bay Shore, and starting with Routefinder Pro and moving into a comprehensive suite of software solutions in use today, Gallagher leverages Transfinder’s expertise in transportation routing, scheduling and communications.
Transfinder helps school districts deploy safe, efficient and cost-effective student transportation through comprehensive knowledge of logistics and planning in addition to substantial cost savings through innovative route planning, personnel and maintenance solutions. Gallagher says Transfinder’s superior customer service is also a differentiating factor.
“The fact is you can always get somebody on the phone, or you can connect online with customer service to fix any problems” Gallagher says. “Transfinder also updates reports as needed and comes up with new reports when they are requested. The customer service support is a huge part of it for me.”
Bottom-line benefits
Gallagher adds that Routefinder Pro shows how the routes fit together so that the district, which contracts its buses, uses the optimal number of buses.
“The route scheduler does that automatically for you” Gallagher says. “It lets you see where you might have an open spot to put a route. it’s very beneficial, especially if you’re more of a visual person and want to see how the routes piece together.”
Gallagher says the district contracts 37 large buses and 42 vans but it only pays for the buses it uses on a daily basis.
“When you contract buses, you can go up and down as you need; Transfinder helps us put that together” says Gallagher, who says this saves the district $25,000 per month. “Transfinder is an economical and efficient system that allows us to plan our transportation so that we use the minimum number of buses and obtain the best results.”
Seamless transition
Gallagher said when Transfinder was implemented at Bay Shore it was a seamless transition. Transfinder imported the student database and route information and trained staff on how to draw the boundaries for bus stops on the district map and add the students to the routes.
“Transfinder did hands-on training and offers continuing service if and when we ran into a problem” Gallagher says. “We had practically no problems implementing it.”
Gallagher says Bay Shore currently uses Transfinder’s suite of applications to plan its five tiers of daily busing, which start at 6:30 a.m. for high school and ends at 9:20 a.m. for elementary schools.
“My schools love Infofinder le because they can look up and see what routes new students are on” Gallagher says.
