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PGCPS outlines transportation action plan: driver hires, new parent app and hub-stop pilot
Summary
District staff presented Phase 1 results and Phase 2 strategies to address driver shortages, launch a new parent-facing app called Chipmunk, and start a hub-stop pilot in partnership with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission for three specialty schools.
Prince George's County Public Schools presented an update to the board on June 26 on progress implementing Phase 1 of its transportation action plan and laid out Phase 2 steps intended to improve reliability, hiring and parent communications.
Chief Operating Officer Dr. Coleman and Director of Transportation Kiva Baldwin told the board the district eliminated more than 300 underloaded trips and consolidated over 3,000 stops to create a leaner routing system. Baldwin reported the district’s “current bus driver fill rate remains at 85%, with 137 full time equivalent positions still unfilled.” He also said about 129 routes remained uncovered and doubled up because of driver shortages.
To address the challenges, staff proposed a set of operational, staffing and technology changes. Key actions include doubling permanent communications staff from nine to 18 full-time positions (in addition to temporary communications staff of 30), hiring 25 additional non-CDL drivers and increasing the van fleet from 16 to 36 to provide routing flexibility. Baldwin said the district will also contract out certain specialized trips and expand customer-service training for phone-bank teams to handle high volumes of calls and transportation resolution-system requests.
Technology changes include phasing out the Stopfinder parent app and phasing in a new parent-facing app called Chipmunk, which the district said is integrated with a routing and operations product called Bus Planner. Staff said Chipmunk will be phased in: special education routes will pilot the new app in the first semester, with full deployment scheduled in the second semester. Baldwin acknowledged Chipmunk would initially not be correlated to the driver device GPS events on all buses but said further phasing would add real-time driver-device integration.
Staff also announced a hub-stop pilot in partnership with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) for three specialty schools — Overlook Elementary, Maya Angelou French Immersion and P.E. Williams Elementary — to create centralized pickup locations at community centers. The district said the pilot aims to reduce ride times, improve on-time performance and simplify routing for specialty programs. Staff said the district had surveyed families at targeted schools and planned continued community engagement and safety reviews for proposed hub locations.
Board members asked operational questions about app timing, driver training and hub-stop security. Baldwin said the new app is called Chipmunk and the special education pilot will begin in the first semester, with full roll out in the second semester. He said the district would provide driver and parent training and run both routing systems (Transfinder/Stopfinder and Bus Planner/Chipmunk) in parallel during the transition.
Why this matters: transportation reliability affects student access to school, on-time arrival, and family communications. Staff said the combined approach — more staff, targeted hiring, tech modernization and hub-stop pilots — is intended to reduce missed trips and improve parent transparency.
Next steps: staff will move forward with the hiring plan, the Chipmunk pilot for special education trips and the hub-stop pilot while continuing community engagement and safety reviews. The board asked for FAQs and parent training opportunities ahead of the app rollout and for early notice before the second-semester wide deployment.
