From Paper Routes to Connected Rides
How Roanoke City Public Schools brought real-time visibility to the student commute with Zūm CMX
Transforming student mobility in Roanoke
Virginia’s Roanoke City Public Schools (RCPS) replaced paper routes, two-way radios, and a single overwhelmed phone line with Zum CMX (Connected Mobility Experience), a single system that coordinates routing, drivers, families, and district operations. Parents now see where their child’s bus is in real time, and drivers follow turn-by-turn guidance on tablets. The district has the data and communication tools to spot delays and answer questions before the phone rings.
Summary & Background
RCPS serves roughly 14,000 students. More than 8,000 of them are economically disadvantaged, about 2,100 are English language learners, and 2,700 receive special education or disability-related services. For many of these families, a reliable bus service is the difference between a child getting to school and a child staying home.
The Challenge
-All routes lived on paper. Drivers carried printed route sheets with stops and directions that sometimes didn’t make sense.
-Drivers radioed in for directions, keeping the channel in constant congestion.
-A single phone line fielded calls from dozens of families at once, so many couldn’t get through.
-Parents had no way to see where a bus was or when it would arrive.
By partnering with Zum and implementing Zum CMX, RCPS gave families a window into their child’s ride and gave the transportation team the tools to keep them informed.
The Transformation
RCPS didn’t need another tool bolted onto the old process. It needed the paper, the radio chatter, and the phone queue replaced by one shared picture of where every bus was and where it was headed. That meant navigation on the driver’s tablet, the bus’s location in the parent’s app, and a district view that flagged problems before anyone reported them. With Zum CMX, the pieces that used to depend on someone making a call now talk to each other directly.
What RCPS put in place:
-GPS-equipped buses with real-time location data
-Driver tablets with turn-by-turn navigation, replacing paper route sheets
-Automatic rerouting when a route is disrupted, with no radio call required
-A parent app that shows where a child’s bus is at any moment
-A district portal that surfaces delays and notifies affected families automatically
The Outcome
Today, parents, drivers, and administrators can see the same real-time picture of the bus, so finding out what’s happening no longer requires a phone call or a radio.
RCPS still remembers the parent who stood before the school board and described her child waiting two hours in the rain, with no answer from anyone about where the bus was. Today, with the help of Zum, parents tell a different story.
One parent recently said, “I knew exactly where the bus was. My child stayed in the house.”
Results
- Parents now track their child’s bus in real time from their phone
- Families now receive automatic notifications when a bus is delayed
- Paper route sheets replaced with GPS-enabled driver tablets and turn-by-turn navigation
- Drivers now rerouted automatically when routes are disrupted, with no radio call required
- Fewer daily calls to the transportation office, according to the transportation team
- Parent feedback includes positive comments like “I knew exactly where the bus was”
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I have closely worked with the Zum team over the last 7 years, and have observed first-hand the benefit of applying their technology to solve our complex day-to-day operations needs.
With Zūm CMX, we save about $3.5 million on a yearly basis, just by reducing the number of routes. We reduced routes by 10% immediately, right when we implemented it. All of our key metrics and KPIs improved right away.
Zūm CMX gives us so much visibility and insight into what's happening in our school transportation. We can see ahead of time that a bus is running late, track that route, and proactively adjust it to make sure it arrives on time. Parents are able to track their bus and get real time ETAs, so they know exactly where their child's bus is at. The software and the technology are great, but the real value is the peace of mind and communication that they provide.
Zūm just brought the overall student mobility operation and the experience to a whole new level. Zūm really focuses on the entire experience not just for the students, but for the school districts as a whole. They completely full-circled the operation by improving communication with families and with us. They also offered us a full EV system that really put the cherry on top of the entire operation. It was a no-brainer to choose Zūm.
Zūm's proven track record, along with its enhanced communication and equity-focused decision making, has greatly benefited our students, families, and drivers in Kansas City. We appreciate their commitment to safety, efficiency, transparency, and student-centered approach, and have been excited to partner with them.
