Bushive Software Revolutionizes How School Bus Contractors Manage Field Trips & Charters

At Canyons School District in Utah, busHive’s trip management platform brings easier navigation and boosts communications. The result: better budgeting, more engaged drivers, and smoother field trip operations. 

Off-site trips are a team effort. Strong communication and coordination are a must for the transportation department, school staff, and school bus drivers. 

School staff, including teachers, coaches, and administrative assistants, need a user-friendly and efficient way to request trips and provide details on what they need. At the transportation office, dispatchers and other staff members have to manage high volumes of trips and track key information like costs and driver hours. And school bus drivers want to know that there is a fair and consistent process for how trips are awarded. Once they are assigned a trip, they need clear instructions on who they are transporting, the schedule of the trip, and how to get where they need to go.

Fortunately, all of these team needs can be met in a unifying solution. Field trip software can help transportation departments overcome the hurdles of field trip management, but first they have to find the right fit. Sometimes that means recognizing that it’s time for a change.

Canyons School District in Sandy, Utah, was burdened by a costly and outdated field trip software program that wasn’t addressing the district’s needs. With a switch to busHive, the district found that their ideal solution was actually more affordable.

“busHive was a game changer for us,” says Matt Curtis, dispatcher and trip coordinator for Canyons School District.

PROBLEM: Outdated and Costly Software

About 20 miles south of Salt Lake City, Canyons School District lies at the foot of the scenic Wasatch mountain range. For students, the region is ripe with opportunities for educational outings: the Utah State Capitol. The Loveland Living Planet Aquarium. The pioneer-honoring This Is the Place Monument.

With an abundance of field and athletic trips — about 3,700 in a typical year — Canyons School District found that its field trip software wasn’t keeping pace. The program was decades old, and the company had stopped supporting it.

“When we had questions, we wouldn’t know what to do,” Curtis says. “We just had to try to figure it out.”

The old program was also hard to navigate, and the process for sending trip requests was cumbersome. On top of those issues, it was expensive to license the software.

Canyons School District was ready for a change. The district went on the hunt for a user-friendly solution that would help it provide efficient service for schools and effective communications with school staff and drivers.

SOLUTION: busHive’s Full Suite of Features

In searching for the right field trip management software, Canyons School District had several priorities:

“We wanted to make our program easier to navigate,” Curtis says. “We wanted transparency. Also, we wanted to make it easier for schools to submit trips to us.” 

The district found the solution to those needs in the busHive field trip platform, which is highly customizable and boasts a full suite of features, including: 

• Online field trip request forms and approval paths
• Historical records of the field trip approval process
• District blackout dates for holidays, testing, and more based on bus availability
• Automated driver rotation and driver sign-up forms
• Dispatch calendar with color-coordinated scheduling
• Driver itineraries with commercial directions
• Invoicing & cost tracking

The district went live with busHive. Although some school staff members were initially wary of the change to a new system, they soon came to see the advantages of busHive.

“They just raved about it,” Curtis recalls. “They said, ‘Don’t ever go back to anything else.'”

Fast Facts: Canyons School District

• School buses: 182
• Schools served: 44
• Total students: 33,000
• Field trips per year: 3,700

BENEFITS: Boosting Communication and Transparency

For the transportation department and schools alike, busHive has proved to be a great fit on numerous levels.

For starters, busHive is more intuitive and easier to use than the district’s previous program, which helps everyone involved in planning and managing field trips.

“It improved our operations simply by the navigation of the program,” Curtis says.

Another key factor: Communication around field trips has improved with busHive. For example, schools can more easily convey exactly what they want in a field trip when they put in a request.

For the transportation department, busHive better facilitates keeping drivers informed about trips they are awarded. The improved communication all around has cut down on the number of phone calls to and from the transportation office, which saves time. 

“It has eliminated quite a number of phone calls,” Curtis says. “busHive has a better mail system. I can send a report from busHive to a secretary who’s looking for an invoice. It has made emails simpler to send. There’s better information in those emails, and we can answer questions better through busHive.” 

Meanwhile, the district’s school bus drivers appreciate busHive’s transparency features. The program keeps track of driver hours and seniority, which helps ensure drivers that trips are awarded fairly.

“This has improved morale across the board,” Curtis says. 

Another boon for bus drivers: The trip itineraries generated by busHive are much more informative than those of the district’s previous system.

“The trip itineraries are just phenomenal — way beyond what we used to have,” Curtis says.

The itineraries provide details like the destination, the purpose of the trip, and how many students should be on board. When needed, busHive can also include turn-by-turn directions for drivers on their itineraries. The result is that drivers are better informed and feel more valued.

“It has improved their willingness to be a field trip driver. They’re in the loop now,” Curtis says. 

On the financial front, Canyons School District has benefited from the cost tracking and invoicing features of busHive. Compared to the district’s previous program, busHive is better equipped for tracking costs and driver hours.

When schools call and ask for a quote for a field trip, Curtis can quickly enter the details and generate a quote. Also, he can easily send out field trip invoices to school administrative assistants. All of this makes for better budgeting for schools and the transportation department.

Another upgrade that the district has enjoyed with the switch to busHive: Product support and customer service have vastly improved. In contrast to the district’s previous program that had become outdated and was unsupported, busHive stays up to date automatically. And when transportation staff members have a question, busHive responds quickly with the answer.

“They’re always extremely helpful,” Curtis says.

Last, but not least, busHive is considerably more affordable than Canyons School District’s prior program. As Curtis puts it, “You can’t beat the cost with what they do.”

With trips under their belt with busHive, the new program has gotten glowing reviews from the whole team at Canyons School District. As the dispatcher and trip coordinator, Curtis says he would recommend busHive to other school bus operations looking for an effective field trip management solution.

“It changed the game for us as far as field trips go,” Curtis says.

About busHive

busHive develops user-friendly software platforms for tracking virtually all aspects of transportation. The company offers solutions for both school districts and school bus contractors, including field trip management, personnel training, and maintenance planning. Learn more at www.bushive.com.