School Bus Routing with TIMS...

. . . The Transportation Information Management System (TIMS) is a unique collaboration between the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) and the Institute for Transportation Research and Education (ITRE) at North Carolina State University. It is an ongoing statewide project that concentrates on maintaining and improving upon efficiency in school bus transportation at the district level. Each district operates standardized, comprehensive computer-assisted school bus routing and scheduling software. By maintaining student, transportation and street network data at the local level, district personnel have access to the most accurate and current data available. TIMS Support Staff at NCSU and UNC Charlotte provide daily software and technical support to individual TIMS data managers across the state. Continued here...

The Service Indicator Report

Optimization tools in TIMS are used to improve the efficiency of transportation services. In addition to the benefit derived from the optimization tools, uniform reporting from TIMS makes possible the production of LEA‐level and statewide data. In this document, data from all LEAs have been collected and summarized. The goal is to give school transportation providers and local policy makers a tool that will help them assess the quality of the services they provide.

2023 TIMS Planning Webinar

TIMS planning Webinar from March 8, 2023 covering the variety of successful strategies used to
properly plan for Summer School 2023 and Back to School Bus Routes for August.

ITRE-TIMS Webinar:

PPT (LINK)
Planning Checklist & Talking Points (LINK)
Webinar Recording (LINK) (Access Password: FgPYZ19+)

The Webinar Covers the Following Topics:

Fall Planning
• Managing Expected Ridership
• Reassessing Transportation for All Students
• PowerSchool Student Transportation Screen
• Preparing Preliminary Back to School Routes
• Bell Times & Arrival/Departure Windows
• Bus Route Analysis, Improvements and Driver Shortages
• TIMS Student Promotions & YET Data

Summer School Operations & Data Collection
• Summer School Locations and Irregular Student Assignments
• Custom Student Screens in PowerSchool for Summer Transportation
• Collecting True Summer School Ridership Information
• Preparing Preliminary Summer School Routes
• Finalizing Bus Routes and Preparing for Day 1 of Summer School

Future Planning Sessions are Listed Below:

 April 19th: LEA Planning Session #2 - Promotions, Rollover & Summer School
 May 3rd: Summer School Data Management & Bus Route Preparation
 May 17th: LEA Planning Session #3 - Promotions, Rollover & Summer School
 July 11th: LEA Planning Session #4 - After YET and Day 1 Route Prep

TIMS Training Survey and Registration Links for All Classes Scheduled through July 2023 can be found
here (LINK)

Additional Webinar Recordings and PowerPoints will be posted as they become available.

TDTIMS- November 2022 Data Collection

TDTIMS is due by Monday November 7, 2022.

This is a HARD DEADLINE for the 2022-2023 school year as this data needs to be incorporated for funding purposes in the current year. If not submitted on time, DPI will be contacting LEA Finance Officers the week of November 7th regarding the late TDTIMS submission and the potential financial impact.

For the 2022-2023 School Year, we will return to the traditional November TDTIMS Data Collection. The TDTIMS Audit is a Comparison of Planned Bus Routes in TIMS to real world data from the TD2 and TD2R submitted by the LEA Transportation Director.

The purpose of TDTIMS is to ensure computerized bus routes are a close approximation of routes being performed daily. If so, then TDTIMS data can be used in the annual funding allocation process for your LEA and will be included in the Annual Pupil Transportation Service Indicators Report (available online in 2023).

New TDTIMS DIAGNOSTIC for Student Stop Distance
The 2022-2023 TDTIMS Process will include a NEW DIAGNOSTIC for Student Distance to Bus Stop. A deeper dive into annual TIMS Data has identified some bus riders being assigned to stops that are many miles from their home. The issue is primarily related to the lack of Alternate AM/PM Locations for students riding the bus to/from a non-home address, afterschool program, boys and girls club, relative’s house, staff children, etc.

Without the Alternate Destination Addresses properly managed, TIMS is showing some children walking 10+ miles to their assigned bus stop. The New Stop Distance Diagnostic will identify students with extreme stop distances so TIMS Operators can research and correct these invalid assignments prior to submitting TDTIMS.

A detailed breakdown of this new diagnostic can be found in the TDTIMS Materials Section below. We are working to add this to all TIMS Servers prior to a special webinar covering the New Stop Distance Diagnostic on Thursday October 13th. The General TDTIMS Webinar is scheduled for Thursday October 20th. You may register for both Webinars using the links below.

TDTIMS Webinars: Recordings will be posted a day or two after each session.

1) Overview of New Stop Distance Diagnostic: Recorded Thursday October 13th: 10:00-11:00am

Webinar Recording Link & Passcode: 7S&!t*0T
2) 2022-2023 TDTIMS Process: Recorded Thursday October 20th

Webinar Recording Link & Passcode .K8z783t

TDTIMS Materials

The 'Preparing for TDTIMS’ document provides a detailed overview of All TDTIMS Diagnostics that will help pinpoint any errors or highlight information that needs reviewed or corrected.

Please Contact your TIMS Support Office at NC State or UNC Charlotte for questions, concerns or assistance with TDTIMS Data Diagnostics and Final Submissions.

New TIMS Extract Method - February 2021

Due to North Carolina switching to the Core Contacts section in PowerSchool , the TIMS Extract must now be acquired from the Data Export Manager in PowerSchool instead of the traditional NCDPI Reports Section.

Below is the Announcement from PowerSchool Support from Friday, January 22, 2021. It contains instructions for Local PowerSchool Coordinators to complete.

Links for PowerSchool Coordinators:

Links for TIMS Operators:

TIMS Reporting TIP!

Have you ever wanted to display the phone number in your reports with dashes separating the numbers? If so, try inserting one of the following codes in the phone number field of your report.

For 999-999-9999 formatting use:

Left(allt(home_phone),3)+"-"+substr(allt(home_phone),4,3)+"-"+right(allt(home_phone),4)

For (999)999-9999 formatting use:

"("+Left(allt(home_phone),3)+")"+substr(allt(home_phone),4,3)+"-"+right(allt(home_phone),4)

Safeguarding school buses: Rail crossings critical

Modern school buses are some of the safest vehicles on the road, but even these sturdy conveyances can be at risk in a collision with a train. Coordination between two N.C. state agencies helps give more information to school bus drivers across the state to help prevent this kind of accident.

Nearly 13,000 public school buses operate in N.C. counties that have railroad tracks, and more than 50 percent of these buses cross a railroad track at least once a day. For buses that cross railroads, the average number of crossings is nearly six a day. In dense urban districts with lots of tracks, the average number of daily crossings for buses can exceed a dozen. Adding all those crossings statewide totals nearly 45,000 times each school day, and those buses carry more than 600,000 students, with an average of 14 students on each bus at the time of crossing. Article continues here

** Important RR crossing Webinar conducted on 8/18/2016 - click here to access

download the webinar powerpoint presentation

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