Wake County public school system bus route data for AY 2023-24
Data files
Mar 26, 2025 version files 131.97 KB
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District1.csv
16.22 KB
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District2.csv
14.52 KB
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District3.csv
15.32 KB
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District4.csv
13.04 KB
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District5.csv
12.25 KB
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District6.csv
9.23 KB
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District7.csv
16.34 KB
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District8.csv
19.99 KB
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District9.csv
13.47 KB
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README.md
1.58 KB
Mar 26, 2025 version files 132.30 KB
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District1.csv
16.22 KB
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District2.csv
14.52 KB
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District3.csv
15.32 KB
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District4.csv
13.04 KB
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District5.csv
12.25 KB
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District6.csv
9.23 KB
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District7.csv
16.34 KB
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District8.csv
19.99 KB
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District9.csv
13.47 KB
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README.md
1.92 KB
Abstract
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published research in 2014 that recommended later school start times (after 8:30 AM) for adolescents to promote their health and academic success. Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) is the largest school district in North Carolina, with nearly 200 schools and over 160,000 students, and all its middle school and high school students start school at 8:30 AM or earlier. In the 2023-2024 school year, a national bus driver shortage made daily student transportation challenging and delayed the school board’s ability to prioritize school start time changes. This study used a mathematical optimization model following a Bin Packing approach to minimize the number of buses required to complete all the routes in the nine sub-districts within Wake County. Scenarios that changed the school start times to abide by AAP recommendations were generated and tested using bus route information from the 2023-2024 school year. Results show that areas with a higher concentration of magnet and special schools require a greater increase in the number of buses needed to swap elementary and high school start times. The results also indicate significant interactions between the sub-districts, which challenge WCPSS’s ability to logistically isolate a sub-district to use as a case study for start time changes. This research investigates the current relationship between transportation requirements and school start times. It provides analysis that could inform decision-making and planning as WCPSS hires more bus drivers and pursues the best outcomes for its students.
Wake County public school system bus route data
Dataset contains school bus route information for each of the nine sub-districts in Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) as found from the individual school web pages in the fall of the 2023-2024 school year.
Description of data and file structure
There is one .csv file for each sub-district and they are titled District1 - District9.
Each sub-district (District1 District9) has seven columns:
- BusName Text containing the bus name used by the school it supports.
- SchoolName Name of school(s) that the bus supports. If the bus is known to complete routes for students from multiple schools, the schools are separated by /.
- SchoolTier C, E, H, or M for combined, elementary school, high school, or middle school, respectively. Combined buses are those that are known to support more than one school.
- RouteStartTime Start time listed for the bus route in the format HH:MM AM.
- RouteEndTime End time listed for the bus route in the format HH:MM AM. This is the time that the bus arrives at the school it supports, or if it supports multiple schools, it is the time that it arrives at the school with the latest start time.
- RouteTime The difference between RouteEndTime and RouteStartTime in minutes.
- SchoolStartTime The start time for the school that the bus route supports, in the format HH:MM AM. If the bus route supports multiple schools, this is the latest school start time that the bus route supports.
Note: The data does not contain any records pertaining to a human individual or identity.
References
Kay, W. 2025. Using Bin Packing Optimization to Investigate the Transportation Challenges Impeding School Start Time Changes in Wake County Public Schools. Masters thesis, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC. https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/resolver/1840.20/45193
The data for various Wake County, NC-based schools was collected via a webscraping script using R from publicly available websites.