Imagine having fun at work.
Lyndsie Rodriguez says that’s what happened to her when her district, Lubbock Independent School District in Texas, upgraded from Routefinder Pro, once the industry’s Gold Standard for school bus routing, to Routefinder PLUS.
Lubbock ISD, located in the base of the panhandle, serves approximately 25,000 students, of which around 5,000 to 6,000 students are transported daily by the district’s buses. This involves managing 56 special education routes and 58 general education routes.
Lyndsie, Lubbock ISD’s router, says the district successfully made the move from Pro to PLUS, a seamless transition despite the size and complexity of its transportation system. Lubbock made the switch during the summer when transportation demands were lower.
She credits the smooth implementation to the support from Transfinder and the time taken to thoroughly test and adapt the system before the school year began. The district also took advantage of this time to retrain staff and work out any issues before fully launching the new system. This careful planning paid off.
“Everything has been really smooth,” she says.
The move from Pro to PLUS brought significant improvements to the district’s transportation operations. Lyndsie sheds light on the differences between the two systems and the positive impact PLUS has had on the district’s routing efficiency.
For Lyndsie, Routefinder PLUS represented a necessary advancement.
“Pro was good to start and learn to understand how everything works,” she says, “being brand new into [routing] and being taught by somebody who had been doing it for years. But PLUS was a necessary step to improve the quality of our routes, time management, and drivers’ understanding of where we’re going.”
One key feature that stood out for Lyndsie was the map-editing functionality in Routefinder PLUS. “I did not touch maps at all” in Pro, she says. In PLUS, Lyndsie finds the tools easy to use.
“It’s actually really fun. Sometimes I just sit there and create neighborhoods that we haven’t created yet,” she remarks, underscoring how user-friendly the map canvas and other features are in PLUS.
This improved user experience wasn’t just a matter of aesthetics or ease. According to Lyndsie, the enhanced features in Routefinder PLUS have directly contributed to more efficient routing and time management.
“We get stuff done a lot faster in PLUS rather than in Pro,” she notes. With Lubbock ISD often cycling drivers to other districts to help out with their transportation systems, PLUS has made it easier for drivers to understand routes and seamlessly assist other areas.
When asked whether she would ever consider going back to Pro, Lyndsie was unequivocal in her response:
“Absolutely not.” She adds that she encouraged the move to PLUS after her predecessor, who’d been routing for nearly three decades, retired. Comparing PLUS to Pro, Lyndsie says: “It’s cleaner. It’s prettier. It’s nicer. It’s more efficient,” emphasizing that Routefinder PLUS is more user-friendly and has the potential to unlock new levels of operational excellence for Lubbock ISD’s transportation department.
“There’s so much more potential here,” she says.
Lyndsie’s endorsement of the system is clear: the benefits of PLUS far outweigh any initial hesitation or learning curve that came with transitioning from Pro.
For other districts still using Routefinder Pro that may be hesitant to make the switch to PLUS, Lyndsie’s message is simple: “What are you waiting for?”
Although she admits to having initially sitting on the fence about the timing of the upgrade, not wanting to implement in the middle of the school year, she believes that moving to PLUS was a smart and necessary decision for Lubbock ISD.
And the Transfinder team, she says, was there all along the way.
“Everyone has been so amazing and helpful,” she says. “Y’all are so awesome, and I have absolutely no complaints whatsoever.”
Learn more at www.transfinder.com.
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