Overview
Littleton Public Schools is a school district in Littleton, Colorado, with 13,000 students; 5,000 of whom are transportation-eligible. The Littleton Public Schools Transportation team has continued to manage the dual challenges facing many school districts across the country: budget constraints and a reduction in available school bus drivers.
The Situation
Despite increasing staff wages and the rising cost of fuel, the transportation budget for Littleton Public Schools has been flat at $6.9M since the 2022-2023 academic year.
In addition to budget constraints, Littleton is facing a decrease of available bus drivers, creating challenges in transporting students efficiently and empowering transportation staff to focus on their roles. For the 2024-2025 school year, Littleton could recruit and employ only 55 drivers, as compared to 80 drivers in 2019, all despite rising bus driver wages.
With a district area that covers 28 square miles, a flat budget, and too few bus drivers, the Littleton Public Schools transportation team wondered how they would be able to get their students to school on time most efficiently. The team thought there must be a better way to manage their existing resources while maintaining a focus on providing the best experience for their students, staff, and school bus drivers.
Littleton Public School was curious to learn how an AI-powered solution could help their team.
How We Approached the Problem(s)
HopSkipDrive began by analyzing Littleton’s current transportation plan to produce a benchmark report that would identify opportunities to optimize Littleton’s plan.
When analyzing bus stop density (the number of bus stops in a square mile), RouteWise AI highlighted that Littleton had more than twice as many bus stops as a similarly situated district. Bus stops can expand for a number of reasons, not all of them directly tied to student safety. Often, districts add bus stops when individual families request new stops. With this comparative data from other districts, Littleton and RouteWise AI embarked on a bus stop consolidation project designed to reduce stops, maintain safety and convenience for drivers and students, and reduce total travel time. The Littleton Transportation team and their expert knowledge of Littleton geography identified priority stops for consolidation; RouteWise AI accelerated the analysis by quickly evaluating impact, providing answers to how many buses and drivers were required with the new consolidated stops and how it would impact student experience (walking distance, time on bus).
“Our routing team doesn’t have the capacity to completely start from scratch and build many new routing scenarios. RouteWise AI allows us to quickly evaluate the operational impact of bus stop or other scenarios without burning out our routing team.”
Marcy Phelps, Director of Transportation,
Littleton Public Schools
Navigating Fluid Staffing
Even with the bus stop consolidation, Littleton has faced challenges in staffing roles at times. This is where RouteWise AI’s scenario planning capabilities helped prepare the team for any outcome. RouteWise AI built a routing plan to reduce up to 20% of general education bus routes by rebuilding all routes to better match the routes to the district’s available bus drivers. RouteWise AI also delivered scenario plans for smaller route reductions that require less change, for example, a one bus reduction that only impacted 8 students or a two bus reduction that impacted 26 students.
These plans help prepare Littleton for any scenario, whether it be a surprise bus driver retirement before back-to-school or an influx of newly identified special needs students mid-year who may require individualized transportation.
“I’ve enjoyed working with the RouteWise AI team. The model often delivers recommendations we wouldn’t come up with on our own. We’ve always combined certain elementary school runs with certain secondary runs - it’s great seeing where the model suggests something different and with more efficiency.”
Laura Sanchez, Router,
Littleton Public Schools
Results Delivered
With their HopSkipDrive partnership, Littleton succeeded in reducing 21% of their bus stops to match their bus driver staff, reducing commute length, and only increasing walk time for some students 0.04 miles. In addition to using RouteWise AI to help solve their current challenges, Littleton also has access to a variety of plans for other potential scenarios, including if bus drivers choose to retire in the future; these plans help the district feel prepared and ready to adjust transportation quickly and with minimal disruption.
Key Results
21% fewer bus stops, with a marginal student walk impact (+0.04 miles for elementary school, no increase for middle school)
Reduced student commute length by 10%, with fewer stops
Schedule a free consultation with HopSkipDrive’s team to understand how RouteWise AI can help your transportation team optimize its resources.
Interested in learning more about how your organization, school, or district can partner with HopSkipDrive?
