28
Sep
Clients in the News... Silver Creek CSD, NY
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Silver Creek CSD Board listens to transportation update
From The Observer
Dunkirk, NY
Posted on 9/27/10
By NICOLE GUGINO Observer Staff Writer
SILVER CREEK, NY - School board members were introduced to updated transportation software benefiting the school starting this year.
Kari Turner, the transport supervisor for Silver Creek schools, compared the old system to the new one, "Before this I would print out a map and hand draw routes and dots where children needed to be picked up, it was very primitive." These hand drawn maps would have to be remade for subs or changes in the roster.
The new program, Transfinder, does much of the work for Turner, although it doesn't stop her from testing the routes herself. "Transfinder is new software that uses a GPS and GIS mapping to eliminate inefficiencies, it also helps us with our student rosters and bus lists and provides us with a data system that works with our student information system so that the data is the same," superintendent David O'Rourke said about the new program.
The software makes the routes, color codes children to a route and can be displayed differently for different uses (as lines or dots). Also, the way the software is set up, it automatically maps out mostly right turns, unless there is a reason that a right turn cannot be made. Transfinder can map out a field trip and store the data for that trip. The transport department will update the student bus roster every month or if there is a change in the roster, for example if a student or family move somewhere else in the district the old bus and the new bus would be notified.
"It makes things more efficient and quicker," Turner added. Because of this software the district was able to eliminate one full size bus route.
On the other side of the program Infofinder le (the school's transport window), teachers and coaches can check and see a message for everyone, can look up a student's bus or alternative transport arrangement, approximate drop off time and can submit requests for field trips.
