SOLUTIONS > ROLE
TRANSPORT COORDINATOR
Make every journey
work
Your job would be challenging enough if you had unlimited time and budgets. But you’re always pressured to do more with less. To deliver a life-enhancing service to vulnerable passengers, and still demonstrate value for money. To plan for change, when change is often the last thing parents and pupils want to deal with. To prove better value, better services, better experiences and better processes.
QRoutes is the UK’s leading route optimisation engine for all aspects of this complex task. You bring the inspiration using its processing power to explore different options and craft workable outcomes.
Supporting transport coordinators at every step
When you need to test different options and think creatively about the best solution:
QRoutes processes multiple routing scenarios so you can compare outcomes and explore what works best
When you need to balance in-vehicle time with pupil needs and service pressures:
QRoutes calculates the impact of changes to journey time, so you can make informed trade-offs
When you need to match the right passenger assistant to the right route:
QRoutes shows how different assistant assignments affect journey dynamics, helping you make people-first decisions
Plan with purpose, deliver with care
QRoutes takes the pressure out of planning home-to-school transport. With fast, accurate routing, you can explore options and respond to changes quickly – without sacrificing efficiency. It gives you the confidence to make informed decisions and communicate clearly with colleagues, providers, and families. And it frees you up to do what you do best: use your local knowledge and insight to deliver a service that’s not only efficient, but thoughtful and responsive to the needs of every passenger.
Case study
Robert Sullivant: They don’t always understand
but they do understand QRoutes
Text description
What customers say about QRoutes
Speaker 1: It’s always good to meet other authorities who are doing the same thing as you, I was just saying it’s so easy to forget that others are in the same boat and everyone has the same problems every day. I think QRoutes is great because, not only is it sort of visual for me, but it’s also really good to kind of show other stakeholders who don’t deal with the day-to-day sort of – children don’t get on, they don’t understand the amount of changes that we have to put into place but they do understand the summary information which is, you know, QRoutes give us and it’s 12 hours versus 10. Everyone understands that.
Speaker 2: The way we work with our operators now, very much in the past we just used to be saying here’s a route and please could you run it. Now we’re very much able to put a tender out to our operators specifying the exact route and the pick ups, so when we get tender responses back we are comparing true like for like.
Speaker 3: QRoutes makes things so much easier, and getting new students onto transport, by pulling up the existing routes and adding a child in and clicking the ‘optimal route’ button, it’s so much quicker than having to try and run everything though Google Maps.
Speaker 4: With QRoutes, I think it’s still a valuable tool for even very experienced planners. They’ll have ideas in their head that they believe is the most efficient way, but sometimes it’s better for a tool that will sort of look at things they won’t see.
Speaker 5: We’re quite new to QRoutes but I have really enjoyed the development process, and just how much support that QRoutes have actually put in.
Supporting transport coordinators at every step
When you need to balance shorter routes with longer walks to pick-up points:
QRoutes quantifies the effect of different stop locations on overall travel time and walking distance
When you need to assign the right vehicle from your fleet:
QRoutes calculates total mileage – including depot to route – so you can pick the most efficient option
When you need to plan around Clean Air Zones, LTNs, or restricted access:
QRoutes visualises restricted areas and automatically adjusts routes to keep journeys compliant and practical
Optimise without compromise
Vantage is the ultimate tool for transport co-ordinators that want to explore every available option to optimise services, maximise cost savings and protect budgets. Optimisation without compromise. Planning without borders.
Save time
QRoutes saves you valuable time by instantly analysing your data to generate optimised routes. It factors in passenger needs, road speeds, and vehicle capacity, and its flexible editing tools make it easy to adapt routes according to your local expertise.
Feel supported
Fast responses from our friendly team! We are expert in our software, of course, but we also understand the task at hand, and are here, ready to help you get the best results. We respond to 99% of support tickets within 2 hours.
Reduce single occupancy vehicles
In many authorities, the use of single occupancy taxis puts a huge drain on resources. QRoutes enables you to quickly find safe, shared journeys that boost service quality, improve resource allocation, and achieve significant savings.
More ways QRoutes
helps Transport
Coordinators
Optimise shared journeys to reduce the number of routes needed—cutting costs, lowering emissions, and shortening travel times for passengers.
Understand how planned roadworks or diversions may impact routes. See restricted areas like Clean Air Zones or LTNs and easily reroute around them.
Get automatic warnings for low bridges, narrow roads, or vehicle-specific access restrictions—reducing risk and ensuring safer journeys.
Easily check that journeys meet in-policy ride times. Balance efficiency with care, especially for SEND passengers who may need shorter or more supported journeys.
Define who can and can’t travel together based on behavioural, educational, or safeguarding needs—and ensure the right mix on board.
Assign passenger assistants to routes and factor them into the journey plan, so support is always in the right place at the right time.
Build and manage pick-up hubs using existing bus stops or custom-defined locations. Ideal for reducing door-to-door complexity while maintaining accessibility.
See walking routes and distances to and from pick-up points or destinations, helping assess the suitability of stops for individual passengers.
QRoutes analyses your cohort and identifies the best pick-up points, automatically assigning passengers to the most appropriate stops.
We’re able to monitor costs more effectively, we’re able to look at the issues that arise daily and fix them in a timely manner – it’s allowed us to improve the service.
Gordon Grant
Scottish Borders Council
Latest insights
Resilient Networks, Defensible Budgets
Resilient Networks, Defensible Budgets is a practical guide for senior leaders on building a school transport service that’s more inclusive, more resilient and significantly more cost-effective
QRoutes joins G‑Cloud 15
QRoutes has been appointed to the UK Government’s G‑Cloud 15 framework, allowing public‑sector organisations to use the platform to procure its cloud‑based SaaS solutions – QRoutes Pro, QRoutes Vantage, and QPaths.
Will the new PM save school transport? A look at Andy Burnham's agenda
There’s plenty in the new PM’s agenda that touches home-to-school transport, but most of it either lands years from now or doesn’t help with the thing councils are actually struggling with: the £2.32 billion spent on school transport in 2023-24. Here’s a run through of the key points on his transport agenda.