Can I Get a Seat?

It is no secret that the re-opening of businesses and schools has become confusing and contentious, to say the least. Transportation Departments for School Districts across Texas, and the entire country, are seeing multiple scenarios play out across various regions. There are 25 million children who rely on school buses in the United States to get to and from school, and industry experts are saying we need to reduce the amount of seating by up to 80% to appropriately social distance the children. In that scenario, school districts will need to make significant changes to their transportation methods, modify school schedules, and leverage completely new transportation options for the 20 million students that would otherwise have to find their own alternative solution to getting to school.

As discussed in the CBS Dallas/Ft. Worth article below, many dual income families and families without means of transportation are now being made responsible for their own transportation to and from school. This creates conflict for parents and guardians who now have to decide which one of them will be getting to work late, and/or who will leave early everyday to take their kids to school. It will also add direct and collateral costs such as third party transportation services or additional gasoline for the family's car(s). Some families can shoulder this burden, but many others cannot.

No one asked for this global pandemic, but we are all in this difficult time together, and need to leverage as many quality resources as we can to achieve everyone's top priority of ensuring children have access to their education. The responsibility should not all be placed on the families. In fact, it is the public school districts' responsibility to provide transportation to every child in their district. While nearly every parent is willing to make concessions during emergencies such as this one, it is still wholly incumbent on the school systems to put forth maximum effort and explore every available avenue before handing the responsibility back to parents. In certain Texas districts there are transportation budgets in excess of $50 million annually that are funded by the same tax paying families being asked now to carry an even heavier load.

In many cases that money is tied up in school buses that are being rendered far less efficient with governmental regulations and school board policies that dramatically reduce the allowable occupancy density in order to achieve proper social distancing. As described above, bus capacity can be reduced by up to 80% rendering them far more expensive per student-trip, and nearly impossible to depend on for carrying their traditional portion of the pupil transportation. Something else simply has to happen.

It is a difficult to almost instantly change the way an entire industry attacks a problem. However, there's an old adage that simply says necessity is the mother of invention, and history has proven that adage to be almost universally true. TRUST-Ed Rides creatively leverages a school district's existing work force and existing transportation budget to solve this dilemma, and even goes further by addressing additional challenges faced by schools at the very same time. Our technology and its associated program takes advantage of existing commuting travel patterns from teachers and other district employees to efficiently transport students while allowing those drivers to earn significant extra income. The result is amazing...school districts maximize the value of its transportation dollars while also bringing a new level of attention to the safety of the children. School bus drivers for the district are even welcome to participate in the program, and perhaps drive a van that is fully insured by TRUST-Ed Rides under this revolutionary new transportation model.

The core idea is to leverage a large existing pool of known, trusted, responsible drivers as a transportation resource to address the transportation needs while simultaneously increasing the income of employees in otherwise high-turnover positions. The district gains full control again of their transportation options and even saves money by simply leveraging their employees who have already been fully vetted and credentialed to deal with children by virtue of the district's own rigorous hiring policies. Employees earn more income. Children get treated to friendly and familiar faces everyday traveling to and from school, and parents love the convenience and safety. Once again, necessity is the mother of invention!

In the Trust-Ed Driver Program, up to 40% of every trip’s cost gets returned to the district in the form of incremental compensation to its existing staff members as payment for their driving services. Think about that...employees can earn a significant increase in their overall compensation without impacting the district's operating budget by even $.01! Now THAT is spending money wisely!

When it comes to driving/transportation liability, Trust-Ed Rides covers all of it by aggregating the coverage of potentially millions of drivers nationwide to drive the insurance costs to their lowest possible levels. This is all possible while allowing schools to maintain complete control of their transportation system because Trust-Ed Rides provides 100% of the technology to schools AT NO COST. We recognize that schools across the country remain 100% responsible for the safety of the student from the moment they are picked up in the morning until they are returned safely to their home.

In prior years, many schools have utilized outside contractors to transport these children. Others use school buses almost exclusively, often dropping kids off at bus stops that requires them to walk unaccompanied for some distance. Increasingly more and more schools hire outside drivers to fulfill the trips in "white fleets" usually owned, maintained, operated, insured, and stored by the school district. Trust-Ed Rides believes that adding this exciting new option to school districts' Transportation Departments will be met with uniformly popular reactions from students, teachers, school officials, parents, and the community at large as they know their schools are being excellent stewards of their tax dollars and giving back as much value as possible to its citizens.

Don't believe me? Read the article below from a local CBS new station...

Cheers,

BJ