Boston Public Schools students who just returned to classrooms have been dealing with widespread transportation delays after the rollout of the district’s new app, Zum. BPS cited late registrations as another contributing factor, but the district is confident that on-time performance will improve soon.
Boston Public School families experienced significant school bus delays during the first week of the new school year.
On the first day of school, 66% of buses were late, according to data provided by BPS. (See the chart below.)
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This comes as BPS implements a new bus-tracking technology called Zum, a mobile app allows parents to track their child’s rides in real time and lets drivers use GPS on tablets instead of following routes on paper,
BPS Transportation Director Dan Rosengard said the district is optimistic about the new Zum app, which more than half of BPS families are now using; however, he acknowledged that it's an adjustment that takes time.
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“We’re going to continue to work with urgency to address these delays and make sure buses are running on time for students,” Rosengard said.
He said it's not a Band-Aid fix but the foundation for better timeliness in the future.
“We knew that we were never going to get where we needed to go with our old system,” he added.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu also noted a massive influx of late registrations as another reason for the delays.
“We’ve never seen these numbers before, of families coming in to register at this point in the process, so late,” Wu said.
She explained that routes have to be adjusted as more riders are added, including newly arrived immigrant families and those choosing BPS after considering other school options.
BPS is required to hit an on-time arrival rate of 95% under a state improvement plan; Wu said the district is aiming for 100%, and is doing everything it can to get there.
Rosengard highlighted that, last year, about a third of drivers had a change in their route from their dry run to the first day of school. This year, it was about two-thirds of drivers.
Despite the initial setbacks, data collected from the first week of school shows buses were increasingly on time throughout the week. “We’re encouraged by the steady day-over-day growth we’re seeing,” Rosengard said.
BPS officials say that delays are common in the first week of school, and they typically see delays as kindergarteners head back the following week too. But, they are optimistic that timeliness will improve in the coming weeks.
"We're encouraged by the steady day-over-day growth we're seeing," Rosengard said.
