Rethink your bus routes - without disrupting today’s service. 

When was the last time you reviewed your school bus routes? 

If the answer is “a few years ago”, there’s a good chance your school community has changed more than your transport network. Families move, new housing developments emerge, and student demand shifts - yet many schools continue operating the same routes year after year. 

The new Smart Route makes it easier than ever to review, redesign and schedule route changes without affecting your live services. Better still, parents can now see upcoming route changes in advance through the RollCall Parent App, making transitions smoother for everyone. 

Discover how Smart Route’s new planning workflow helps schools design once, schedule with confidence, and never duplicate their work again. 

Empty seats aren’t always available seats. 

Encourage better booking habits with the new Non-Travel Surcharge. 

Every transport coordinator has experienced it. The bus leaves with empty seats - and meanwhile, there’s a waitlist of students hoping for a place. So what happened? 

Often, those empty seats weren’t actually available. They were booked by students who simply didn’t travel - and didn’t cancel their booking. While one unused seat may not seem like a big deal, repeated no-shows make it difficult to understand demand, allocate limited capacity and offer places to families who genuinely need them. 

That’s why we’ve introduced the Non-Travel Surcharge. Available within the RollCall Settings Hub, this new setting allows schools to automatically apply a flat surcharge when a student is booked to travel but doesn’t. 

The surcharge can be configured to suit your transport policy by: 

Each missed AM or PM booking is treated as a separate occurrence, allowing schools to encourage more accurate booking behaviour while ensuring valuable seats aren’t sitting empty unnecessarily. 

The goal isn’t to penalise families. It’s to encourage parents to cancel bookings they no longer need, or record absences before the bus departs, giving schools a more accurate picture of who is actually travelling. 

Better booking habits lead to better seat availability, fairer access to limited capacity and more efficient transport services for everyone. 

Why do I now need to enable parents? 

If you’ve recently noticed the new Enable Parent step before sending a Welcome Email, you’re not alone. The new Manage Parent Access feature gives schools greater control over who can access the RollCall Parent App - and we’ve already simplified the workflow to make onboarding easier. 

Learn what the different parent statuses mean, why this change was introduced, and how the new prompts help ensure no invitations are missed. 

Or watch the 2-minute walkthrough →

Finalise student balances before offboarding. 

Marking a family as a Past Parent or Past Student doesn’t stop RollCall from following up outstanding transport balances. If a balance remains owing, payment reminder emails will continue to be sent - even after the family has left your school. 

As part of your student offboarding process, make sure you either collect the outstanding payment, transfer the balance to the student’s school account, or write it off so the RollCall balance is $0.00. 

A simple balance check today can save awkward conversations tomorrow. 

The Road Ahead. 

What our developers are working on … 

One student. One workflow. One system. 

Still using Google Forms, spreadsheets and manual data entry to enrol new families onto your bus service? 

Our upcoming Intake Workflow brings the entire enrolment journey into RollCall - from the parent’s online application through to route allocation, confirmation and payment. No duplicate data entry. No disconnected systems. Just one streamlined, fully auditable workflow from first enquiry to first bus trip.