We worked with an independent school in Suffolk to make significant improvements to their current transport offering, whilst continuing to use their current vehicles and drivers.

Background

The school already provided home-to-school transport for a group of pupils, with many elements of the service working well. However, the Transport Manager identified that certain changes were needed to improve the offering, whilst continuing to utilise the same drivers and in-house minibuses.

The primary goal was to improve safeguarding, removing reliance on a paper register – ensuring better visibility of pupils on board each bus and the location of buses on their journeys.

In addition, the school wanted to improve the management of the service. Calls from parents were hugely time-consuming for the Transport Manager, who was having to manage day-to-day service administration, alongside finding time for longer-term planning.

The school also wanted to improve their own visibility of the day-to-day running of the service, to ensure that only authorised stops were being used.

 Solution

  • Implemented StudentSafe safeguarding technology, with pupils tapping on/off vehicles –to provide a digital register, enable the school and parents to track vehicles and pupils in real-time, as well as providing parents with boarding/alighting notifications
  • Provided parents access to the StudentSafe Parent App, to monitor journeys, receive delay notifications, book journeys and make changes
  • Handled all parent enquiries via our live service delivery team, either on the phone or via email, saving the Transport Manager a significant amount of time
  • Provided visibility and peace of mind to the school that authorised stops were always being used
  • Implemented the StudentSafe Driver App to log vehicle checks, providing the school with visibility of essential maintenance work
  • Improved parent satisfaction, through improved safeguarding and customer service

All changes were delivered whilst maintaining the same minibuses, drivers and routes, minimising upheaval and unnecessary alterations.

The relationship has also extended beyond the original brief:

  • When the school experienced a last-minute driver shortage, we stepped in to temporarily provide an externally procured service, ensuring no outage for parents
  • The school are now looking at moving parent payments to StudentSafe, to remove another time-consuming task from the in-house school team

Overall, the work has brought a much greater degree of professionalism to the school’s transport service, including enhanced safeguarding and significantly higher parent satisfaction, as well as establishing a long-term, trusted transport partner for the school.

To find out more about how we could bring similar benefits to your school, get in touch today