SD67 to take part in school bus pilot program design
The Okanagan-Skaha School District is embarking on a pilot program with the province using technology intended to design more efficient bus routes.
Penticton is one of the first cities in B.C. to partner with the Ministry of Education on the route optimization pilot program.
The program uses transportation-based software cross-referenced with student location data from the MYEDBC database to get an overview map of the district.
The overlapping data is expected to help with making more efficient route changes.
Director of Facilities Doug Gorcak is working with the ministry to get the project going in School District No. 67, which includes Penticton, Westbench, Summerland, Naramata and Kaleden.
The district has 710 registered riders in Penticton, 537 within the catchment area and 144 from outside, with approximately 20 per cent of riders outside the catchment area.
The project will wait to move forward pending a review of the school district's boundaries.
“Mr. Gorcak is waiting for the catchment area review to be completed and then what he will do is use all that information to overlap and create a bus route schedule that matches any changes to our catchment area and boundary,” district superintendent Wendy Hyer said.
The boundary review is expected to be completed in June. The transportation review with the new software is scheduled for spring 2019, with the implementation of the new routes expected for the 2019-20 school year.