West Geauga transportation staff outline tablet rollout, route changes and driver recruitment

Mrs. Coniglio, presenting a transportation update to the West Geauga Local School District Board of Education, said the district will introduce tablets on buses to improve head counts, routing and parent notifications and will phase the devices in during the school year while continuing the Here Comes the Bus app at startup.

The move, Coniglio said, is intended to give families more reliable arrival information and allow staff to remove routes with sustained non-ridership after two weeks. "The tablets will help especially with head counts, knowing who's on the bus daily, where we could push and pull to get those routes even more efficient," Coniglio said.

Board members and staff framed the change as an operational step rather than a formal policy vote. The district reported current routing and ridership data during the presentation: 23 bus routes, eight van routes and service to 24 schools and program locations; about 1,338 students are routed in the morning and just under 1,600 in the afternoon, with an actual daily ridership the presenter put at about 1,202 students.

The presentation said tablets differ from the existing Here Comes the Bus system because tablets "follow the route and not the bus" and register a stop…