'I colour a lot with markers': How to reroute school buses after a major rezoning

Transportation services at P.E.I.'s Public Schools Branch had a special problem to work on this year with about 7,500 of the school system's 19,000 students being rezoned.

The rezoning was done to deal with overcrowding in some schools and underutilization in others.

• School rezoning letters going home Tuesday

Melissa de Jager, who works in the routing department at transportation services, was given the task of figuring out how to get students to their new schools.

"I started by drawing them out on a big map. I'd look at one school and draw out every route," said de Jager.

"I colour a lot with markers and draw them out on the big maps and, yup, it works for me. I find it the fastest because I'm a visual person."

The changes affected 150 routes and 61 buses.

While this was an especially big project, de Jager said school bus routes are constantly being adjusted. People move and new subdivisions are being built, and that requires changes throughout the year.

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