Local News Two thirds of BPS buses were late for first day of school, officials blame new app and route changes Boston’s school transportation system got off to a rocky start, prompting many complaints and increased scrutiny from City Council. Cheryl Buckman and her sixth-grade son Landen Buckman, 11, watch as the Zum app displays a gradually increasing delay for Landen’s bus on the first day of school. The bus ultimately skipped Buckman’s stop, passing less than 500 feet away. Josh Reynolds/Boston Globe
On the first day of Boston’s school year, more buses arrived late than on any previous first day over the past nine years. The transportation issues, which coincided with the introduction of a new bus-tracking app, come as the district enters the final year of a state improvement plan that requires BPS buses to hit a monthly on-time arrival rate of 95%.
In total, just 34% of buses were on time for morning drop-off at BPS schools on Sept. 5, The Boston Globe reported. On-time arrival rates are normally low on the first day of a school year, but this year’s data is striking. On the first day of the 2023 school year, the district achieved a 61% on-time arrival rate. That rate last dipped below 50% in 2019, when it hit 43%.
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A BPS spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
In a statement to the Globe, Superintendent Mary Skipper acknowledged the delays. She attributed some of the issues to people being unfamiliar with Zum, an app that tracks buses in real time for students and families.
“We appreciate our families’ patience as we work through these issues and we understand that many BPS families experienced frustrating transportation delays on the first day of school,” Skipper said in a statement. “These delays that happen in the first days of school were largely expected due to drivers and bus monitors navigating new routes and greeting new faces for the first time, and the implementation of the new Zum technology that the majority of our bus drivers, families, and school-based staff were using in real-world conditions for the first time.”
BPS awarded a three-year contract to Zum ahead of the current school year. Officials, including Skipper and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, touted the technology as a way to reduce student commute times, improve transparency, and collect better data. Before the partnership with Zum, the only way that administrators knew that a bus was running late was if they received reports from the driver or parents. The switch, therefore, was characterized as a shift from a reactive approach to a proactive one.
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Bus drivers and monitors got acquainted with the Zum app over the summer, when the district was responsible for transporting about 3,000 students. They gave feedback to district leaders, including a push for the app to be made available in more languages, Skipper said at a press conference last month.
A total of 632 BPS buses serve about 22,000 students daily. Many of their families reported buses skipping stops completely or being delayed by as long as 45 minutes. Some arrived at schools well after bells had rung for the first class of the day.
About 60% of BPS families that use bus trasnportation have downloaded the app so far, Wu said Tuesday during an interview on GBH’s “Boston Public Radio.”
Zum allows drivers to update when students get on or off a bus in real time, gives drivers better GPS navigation, and lets families notify drivers in advance if their child will not be taking the bus.
“All of that is going to take a little bit of transition,” Wu said.
But, she added, the adoption of Zum was not the main reason for the delays and confusion this year. More families than normal registered their children for bus transportation during the final weeks of summer. Last year, about one third of BPS drivers had route changes added between early August and early September, after the drivers were given their initial route assignments and completed their “dry runs.”
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This year, that figure doubled, Wu said.
“Some of this is that there are more and more newly arrived immigrant families registering and sometimes those timelines are a little bit less predictable and there’s been an influx,” she said. “But we have not seen these numbers in the August – September registration timeframe before.”
The on-time arrival rate did rise to 61% on Friday morning, and was 57% on Monday morning, the Globe reported. Kindergarteners began school this week, adding to the number of students needing transportation.
Despite those improvements, Boston City Council could increase the scrutiny on BPS transportation this week.
“In South Boston, another parent reached out to my office saying that she waited and tracked the bus on the new app for 45 minutes with her small child, only for the app to become unavailable and the bus to never arrive. She had to personally take her child to the Murphy School,” Councilor Ed Flynn said in a statement on Sept. 5.
Flynn subsequently introduced a hearing order to discuss the transportation woes. He called the long wait times “unacceptable” and pushed for BPS officials to testify in front of the councilors. The hearing order is set to be discussed at Wednesday’s City Council meeting. Flynn was the only listed sponsor as of Tuesday morning.
We must acknowledge the failure of @BostonSchools transportation plan. Students and their parents deserve better and our respect. It’s critical we work together to address these ongoing challenges. The status quo is no longer an option! #bospoli https://t.co/yM7sZ0WyZU — Ed Flynn 愛德華費連 (@EdforBoston) September 10, 2024
Concerns about the BPS transportation system are not new. Advocates have said that inadequate transportation disproportionately affects students of color and those with disabilities. Addressing transportation problems was a key part of the last-minute agreement signed by Wu and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in 2022 to avoid a state takeover of the district.
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In addition to the goal of achieving a district-wide school bus on-time arrival rate of 95% or better each month, the 2022 agreement also said that 99% of BPS school buses should arrive at school within 15 minutes of the start of the day. The highest monthly average the district achieved in the 2023-24 school year was 90%, in March.
In a bright spot, BPS officials say they have addressed a longstanding shortage of bus drivers and monitors. Skipper said last month that the district was starting the school year with more than enough drivers and monitors. This is the first time in recent memory that BPS has had enough monitors, she added. The district now employs more than 740 drivers and 750 monitors.
“That 100% fill and above is something that very few large urban districts are able to achieve,” Skipper said.