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Glossary

Zum, defined

Definitions of terms used across Zum. Missing one? Let us know.

Browse terms

Term	Definition
Charter	Transportation for field trips, athletics, and special programs, booked through Zum’s self-serve charter marketplace with upfront pricing
Dynamic dispatch	Real-time reassignment of vehicles and drivers in response to absences, delays, and schedule changes
Electrification	Zum’s service to transition a district fleet to electric school buses, including vehicles, charging infrastructure, and energy management
Full Stack	A contract under which Zum provides vehicles, drivers, yard operations, and the Software together as one service
Home-to-School	Daily transportation of students between home and school under a district contract, run on Zum CMX
On-time performance (OTP)	The percentage of rides (pickups and drop-offs) completed within five minutes of the scheduled bell time, measured against the district’s published bell schedule
RFID ridership	Card- or phone-based scan-on, scan-off that records which students boarded and exited each vehicle
Route optimization	AI-generated and continuously updated bus routes based on student locations, bell schedules, traffic, and vehicle capacity
Software	The digital components of Zum CMX: apps and dashboards for parents, students, schools, drivers, transportation teams, and yards; AI route optimization; real-time tracking and ETAs; dispatch; fleet and yard operations; billing and payroll workflows; energy management. Available on subscription to districts that run their own fleets, and included in Full Stack contracts
Student information system (SIS)	The district’s system of record for student rosters, addresses, and schedules, which Zum’s Software syncs with
Transportation Anxiety Crisis	Zum’s name for the finding, from a 2026 NORC at the University of Chicago survey, that 54% of parents report their child has anxiety about school transportation and 39% report late arrivals due to transportation
Vehicle-to-grid (V2G)	Technology that lets a parked electric school bus send stored battery energy back to the electric grid, typically during peak demand, and charge when demand is low
Virtual power plant (VPP)	A fleet of distributed batteries (here, electric school buses) coordinated to act like a single power resource for the grid
Yard	A Zum-operated depot where vehicles are parked, charged, maintained, and dispatched, and where drivers report
Zum	Brand name of Zum Services, Inc., a student transportation company serving K-12 districts. Written “Zum” in text; the logo carries the macron (Zūm)
Zum CMX (Connected Mobility Experience)	Zum’s integrated system that connects students, families, drivers, yards, schools, and district staff in real time across software, operations, and vehicles. CMX is the whole system, not a single app