What are Transport Timetables?
A transport timetable is the set of dates between which the same transport programme will run, for example, the school year, or the school term.
If you wish to create a new transport timetable or add new dates to an existing timetable, this should ideally be completed before the end of the previous term or at least a minimum of 2 weeks before the timetable starts.
When to use Transport Timetables
Testing or trialling the system
You can set up a dedicated testing timetable with buses routes and students to trial the transport module while still carrying on building your full transport offering ready for a date in the future. Please do reach out to help@schoolsbuddy.com if you require any further assistance in configuring your transport module.
Planning ahead for the next academic school year
When you are finishing a school year you can go ahead and create new transport calendar timetables for the next academic school year without affecting anything you have set up for the current school year. You are able to create a new timetable calendar and start building your transport offerings for next year. Please follow the steps above.Â
Varying ‘going home’ bus departure times during periods of NO after school activities by creating two different timetables. SchoolsBuddy can automatically move students from a PM bus to a Late bus if they have activity in their diary but some schools do not operate multiple going home bus services for students and instead move their bus times later to suit when activities are running and if for some reason a student is not doing an activity then they would require parent pickup earlier.
Creating date-specific timetables that turn on and off buses at different times is a perfect use case of transport timetables. As an example, for the first two weeks of term when no activities take place buses leave at 3.30 and other times 4.30.
Handling early finishes on the last day of term
Some schools finish early on the last day of term and the school bus service offers an early departure time. With timetable calendars create a different timetable (with a rarely used early timeslot) for those 3 days and copy across student transport preferences and on those three days when we generate transport events based upon the preferences of students on those dates.
Watch this video or read the guide below to set up your own timetables:
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“Please note that we are in the process of updating all of our user videos so the latest user interface may not be reflected in the video."
Creating Transport Timetables
Select the transport tab (1) and Transport Timetables (2)Â
Give the transport timetable a name (1), for example"2021/2022" or "Autumn term 2021". Then click Add (2) to select the dates the services will run between.Â
In this example we are setting up a calendar for the whole academic school year 31st August 2021 (1) - 15th July 2022 (2).  Click Apply to finish(3).Â
You are able to add as many calendars as you need - you could change the transport options every half-term if you really wanted to (!).
You cannot add a timetable with a date range that overlaps an existing timetable. If you try to you will see a warning symbol and the date ranges will appear in 'RED' as below. (1)Â
After you have added your timetable, select the name of the one you want to update in Timetable Configuration (1) and click Add (2).
Select a Transport method (1) and Timeslot (2). The Timetable will default to the one you are on but you can also choose another on this screen (3). Select the days the transport timetable will run on and click: (4) Next
Select Include (1) on the routes that you wish to have on the transport timetable. Add in a Bus number/ ID (2) click Save.Â
Under Transport configuration on the timetable (1) you will now see the Timeslots assigned to the transport timetable and routes (2). If you need to amend the routes on this timetable click Routes (3).Â
Remember: Student transport preferences
Students are assigned transport preferences by the timeslot within a timetable. This could be Going to School, Going home from School, Late buses, Early finish buses (on the last few days of term). The system is totally flexible to how your school operates. You can copy student preferences from one timetable (timeslot) to another quickly and easily with the ‘Copy from other Timeslot’ option. Â