Student Transit Wisconsin Contractor

Smarter Driver Management: Instant Absentee or Late Alerts to Drive Route Flexibility 

Prior to Bytecurve360, the start of every day was a blur of visual management of who’s arriving on time, who’s absent and then a flurry of activity to fill the suddenly vacant routes. 

“First it was Julie, then Becky, and then Stan and, wait … .who was that? Did we miss someone? We had to watch them literally come in and know who was where and how it would impact operations,” Lacey recalled. 

“Now the information comes to us, we get alerts when people are late clocking in or going to be absent altogether and it allows us to respond faster. We’re not trying to figure out who’s missing. We’re on to adjusting our routes.” 

And that’s when Bytecurve delivers in a previously unimaginable way with an immediate impact on-time arrivals, fewer parent calls and more satisfied customers. 

“I don’t know what I would do anymore if I wasn’t able to break up the routes and re-assign the drivers the way we do with Bytecurve every day, It’s a few clicks and we’ve moved people and routes and kept the whole machine running better” Bast explains. 

“It’s changed the way we operate and allowed us to be so much more flexible and do it quickly.”

Time and Attendance: Comprehensive, Instant Verification and Money Saving

Before Bytecurve360, Student Transit had different payroll clock-in, clock-out systems for the organization’s different departments. Drivers, aides and monitors on one system with the mechanics and support staff on another.

Moreover, it was tedious and time-consuming to find irregularities that could be costly. Identifying who clocked in 25 minutes before their route instead of five, or 20 minutes after, again instead of five, was a manual task that required vigilance, nevermind finding the time in the day. 

Coupled with the challenges of paying the same employee working in diverse roles with different pay codes – sometimes in the same day – and payroll assumed an outsized administrative burden.

Now, all employees are tied to the Bytecurve payrolls system, which is integrated with the organization’s human resources software to automatically generate paychecks. 

It also features unlimited job classifications, meaning a single employee can simply swipe between the pay rates of jobs like driver, monitor or aid without the tedious administrative burden on management. 

“What I love is the simplicity of instant verification of hours matching routes and how it shows us any discrepancies immediately,” Lacey said. 

“We’re not chasing down drivers or timesheets anymore, all the data is right there in front of us and we’re able to catch and fix almost any error right away. It’s impossible to know how much we’ve saved in payroll but we know it’s not a little.”

GPS provides real-time awareness, Bytecurve validates 

Lacey said she still relies on the Zonar GPS to serve as her wide-angle lens on her fleet on the streets of northern Wisconsin. 

Cast onto a big-screen TV with immediate updates, it’s her go-to when drivers call in for help. 

“Zonar is a big part of our success here. I love being able to see the exact location where a driver is when they’re calling in a situation or need a hand,” she said. 

“And Bytecurve is the connection we needed to turn that real-time status into actionable upgrades to make us even better at what we do.” 

Bast said the real-time Google Maps traffic feed has converted their once on-the-fives departures to a more accurate reflection of on-time arrival, reflecting the precision of an airport departure board. 

“It used to be always on the fives, buses left at 7 or 7:05 or 7:10 and so on, and that was part of how people thought about their day and their jobs,” she explained. 

“Now with Bytecurve were really dialed in to real traffic conditions and route expectations, and we’ve had to retrain our people that you should leave at 7:02 or 7:14. It’s part of our culture of improving our operations to be better at serving the students.”

Klukas refers to Bytecurve as his command and control, and appreciates how it blends disparate solutions that formerly operated in their own silos into a more powerful perspective. 

“We know we can’t go without Zonar and Versatrans for our routing and now Bytecurve has become our one-stop-shop for all things operations,” he said. “I can say I can’t remember how we did some of the things we accomplish now and I don’t want to.”

About Student Transit

A fourth-generation family-run company, Student Transit strives to “treat everyone like family” with a proud tradition of excellent customer service in the Eau Claire, Wisconsin area.

Today it serves three districts, including Altoona, Fall Creek and Eau Claire school districts, with its approximately 500 buses. 

About Bytecurve

Founded in 2018 by GP Singh after many years on the frontline of student transportation operations with one of the country’s largest private student transportation providers, Bytecruve is designed as a 360 view of operations. 

By blending routing and GPS fleet tracking data, and adding a payroll capability as well as mobile app for two-way communications between dispatch and drivers, Bytecurve 360 has created a new category for student transportation excellence: the dispatch command center. 

“We believe many school bus operators still don’t appreciate all the potential improvements they can deliver by taking two powerful yet independent systems and merging them into a new layer of visibility and action,” Singh said. “We’re integrated with all the major providers of routing systems and GPS fleet tracking so virtually any school district with both systems can take advantage of our transformative technology.” 

Trusted by dozens of districts across North America, more than 40,000 school buses rely on Bytecurve technology to improve their efficiency and safety. 

“I know from first-hand experience what school bus fleet leaders need to perform at their best, and we work tirelessly on our product and with our customers to deliver this experience so they can know they are investing in the safest and most efficient fleet.”