District combines ‘old school, new school’ approach to route students
They’ve got the same name but that’s pretty much where the similarities end. Even how they spell their name is different.
“They” is Bryan Perryman and Brian Boroughs. Perryman is the director of transportation at River Road Independent School District in Amarillo, Texas. Boroughs is the district’s mechanic.
And both work together using Transfinder’s Routefinder to build the safest and most efficient routes for the 1,350 students attending four schools in the district. About 540 students or so opt for school transportation.
“I am learning Transfinder’s technology,” Boroughs said. “I can actually build a route now. He’s working me more and more and getting me up to speed to help,” he added, referring to Perryman. “Especially at the beginning of the year, getting all the students routed, scrubbing the list, and then scrubbing the list, then scrubbing the list.”
The two discussed how Transfinder’s service and support teams have helped instruct them. They have been there whenever they faced a challenge, like removing roads from maps that don’t exist and building routes for summer school when students who typically attend school in different buildings are all receiving instruction in one building.
Perryman talked about quick and helpful callbacks from support.
“Support has been very good for us,” Perryman said.
“They walked me through our yearly rollover,” Boroughs said, adding that he writes down notes when speaking with support. “I have a notebook when I take notes: How to delete roads, step by step, what to click and what to do. The guys are super patient with us over the phone.”
Boroughs is comfortable at the computer. “I am an IT guy by trade. That’s what I did for 20 years in the military before I retired,” he said. “So now I’m here and it’s no different. I’m working the helpdesk but you’ve got parents calling in.”
Perryman said the two complement each other.
“I’m totally the opposite end of the spectrum. I’m not an IT person whatsoever. I know very little about computers. In fact, I still use these two fingers to type,” Perryman said. “I’m the old school, he’s new school.”
River Road ISD provides a good example of knowing who is in your transportation department and assessing what skill sets they have that may be useful to help you run more efficiently. Perryman jokes that Boroughs “gets frustrated with me because I’m typing with two fingers.”
Both Boroughs and Perryman said it doesn’t matter which person calls Transfinder, Perryman said support meets them both where they are at.
“When we call Transfinder they’re very patient with us. They’ll zoom, zoom all over the place and show us and that’s really nice,” Perryman said. And once Transfinder provides the instruction, Perryman said the Transfinder team then watches he and Boroughs perform whatever task they just learned.
“Transfinder really helps us,” Perryman said.
