Early savings in time and money for Wiltshire with more in the pipeline

Wiltshire County Council have reduced the number of routes to a single post-16 college from 12 to 9 by using QRoutes. These initial savings from one establishment equates to over £60k per annum.

We think total savings this year will exceed £300k. At one school it looks like we can reduce the number of contracts from 30 to 19.

Adrian Weissenbruch, the SEN Transport Manager

The cloud-based tool is also helping the team balance passenger requirements and provision. “We need to use our transport budget equitably,” says Adrian. “QRoutes helps us assess requests in context of their impact on the whole provision and ensures we’re making fair use of the budget we have.”

Save time with schools transport planning

The team are also finding that QRoutes gets results in a fraction of the time it takes to plan manually. “It doesn’t just save money,” says Adrian, “planning with QRoutes is so much quicker. I can get results in three minutes that would normally take me half a day.” That means Adrian and his colleagues can quickly test and compare other solutions to be sure they have the best answer.

For example, before using QRoutes, the team had to focus on planning for the vehicles they knew were available from their operators as planning a route was so labour intensive. Exploring a what-if scenarios wasn’t an option.

Evidence for negotiation with transport operators

Using QRoutes, they now have evidence that using larger vehicles will be more efficient and the team can engage with local operators to make sure the right vehicles are available for the most inclusive journey experience for the students.

Return on investment many times the cost of subscription

Overall, Wiltshire CC have already made savings to pay for QRoutes for a number of years and expect an ongoing return on investment many times the cost of their subscription. Savings have been made both in a reduction in the number of contracts and because the speed of results gives planners time to scrutinise different options until they find the best solution for their clients and the taxpayer.