Fleet management 101: A comprehensive guide for your school bus fleet

To keep students safer, reduce budget costs and enhance efficiency, telematics is proving to be an invaluable asset for school districts. This article explains how telematics helps school bus fleet managers streamline student transportation and gain deeper operational visibility. We’ll also address the differences between telematics and fleet management platforms for school districts, including their benefits and key features to consider when choosing a solution provider.

What is school bus fleet telematics?

School bus fleet telematics is a combination of hardware and software tools that allow districts to collect data about their vehicles’ daily activities. In addition to reporting GPS locations of school buses, telematics also provides fleet managers with insights on how they’re being driven, their route histories and diagnostic information.

While these features of telematics are critical for optimizing student transportation, the industry’s technology landscape has evolved. Fleet management solutions now build upon the foundational aspects of telematics, offering advanced capabilities to help districts drive even more value. Fleet management solutions help you achieve greater benefits for your school bus fleet than simple GPS tracking alone by allowing you to uncover deeper actionable insights about your vehicles.

What are the benefits of fleet management technologies for school bus fleets?

Fleet management solutions can help your school bus operations drive value in a litany of ways, ranging from improved safety to lower costs. Here are several of the primary ways you can give your operations a boost with these technologies.

Enhance safety: Protect both students and drivers with fleet insights that helps you curb problematic driving before a safety incident occurs.

Extend school bus longevity: Get more miles out of your bus fleet by keeping a close eye on the health of your vehicles and providing timely maintenance.

Increase savings: Reduce fuel costs by identifying and limiting instances of speeding or idling. Save on maintenance by proactively servicing your buses.

Support sustainability initiatives: Decrease fuel consumption by monitoring and optimizing vehicle usage.

Key fleet management features for student transportation

To harness all the benefits that fleet management software can provide for your operations, it’s important to find a solution that can check all your boxes. End-to-end school bus fleet management systems offer a bundle of features for safety, vehicle maintenance and more in a single solution, helping you optimize all aspects of your fleet’s performance holistically. When looking for a solution that’s built for student transportation, several features stand out:

Collision detection and reconstruction - If a collision occurs involving one of your school buses, retain data evidence and study the events leading up to, during and after it to protect against liability and understand how to better prevent such incidents in the future.

Risk analytics - Gauge the likelihood of one of your buses experiencing a collision with AI-enabled predictive insights. Risk analytics use a variety of factors that are unique to your fleet to accurately forecast the probability of a collision, enabling you to proactively devise new safety strategies.

Driver coaching - Real-time coaching and reporting tools foster a positive feedback loop, enhancing driver well-being and promoting a safety-first culture within fleets. This leads to higher driver retention, improved driver satisfaction, and ultimately, a safer transportation environment.

Predictive maintenance -  Take better care of your school buses with predictive maintenance insights that let you know when it’s time to schedule service. Stay on top of oil changes, tire rotations and more using individualized vehicle maintenance data.

Vehicle alerts - Get notified of mechanical issues like low tire pressure readings, battery problems, engine faults and more in your school bus fleet in near real-time. Know when to remove a bus from the road for repairs and take action quickly to keep your students and drivers safer.

Utilization metrics - Study analytics that highlight the disparity between overused and underused vehicles in your fleet. Optimize costs and lengthen the lifespans of your school buses by equalizing their usage rates.

Fuel and emissions management - Track fuel expenditure in your fleet over time. Develop data-informed policies to increase uptime, reduce consumption and improve the sustainability of your operations.

Questions to ask when selecting a fleet management solution for your school bus fleet

In addition to studying key features when choosing a school bus fleet management solution, you’ll also want to ask these questions to help you verify an optimal fit.

Does the platform do more than simply offer GPS tracking? Determine if the platform will provide an all-in-one solution that will meet all of your fleet’s needs, including driver behavior monitoring, predictive maintenance and fuel consumption reporting.

Can this solution help me log driver inspections (DVIRs)? Make sure your school bus fleet management platform is able to help automate the process of driver inspection logs. This digitized approach guides drivers through their bus inspections at the beginning and end of their shifts, helping to verify that their vehicles are in suitable condition and that no student is left behind. 

Can it integrate with my existing systems and is the solution customizable to my needs? Is the solution you’re considering able to integrate with other technologies like video telematics? Does it have an open software development kit (SDK) and open APIs to make tailoring it to your fleet’s needs easier? Having the ability to integrate your platform with student ridership, video telematics and routing solutions helps you centralize your data and easily manage your fleet.

Can I envision a clear path to ROI with this platform? For school bus fleets, ROI through fleet management solutions comes in the form of safer operations, tangible cost savings and greater efficiency. If it’s not easy to see how your student transportation processes will markedly improve as a result of the solution you’re considering, it’s best to keep looking.

Is the provider reputable and always there when I need help? The continued support of your fleet management partner is just as essential as the tools they provide. Look for a leader in the industry that will stay with your organization from initial discovery to product implementation and beyond.

The Geotab solution for student transportation

For a truly end-to-end student transportation fleet management solution, consider Geotab. Our comprehensive solution bundles Geotab GO devices with camera integrations and DVIRs to address all your bus fleet’s needs, and we’ll remain by your side through each phase of your fleet management journey. Furthermore, while video telematics integrations and DVIRs make in-field safety simpler to manage, GO devices collect critical data that can help you optimize your vehicles’ fuel efficiency and maintenance practices. Keep your vehicles on the road, protect your pupils and consistently help them arrive on time using our school bus fleet management solution.

Learn more about how our fleet management solutions can enhance your student transportation operations by reaching out to us.