Transportation Request System, User Guide

How the system works

A two minute overview for everyone.

Teachers and coaches request district transportation online with no account and no password. Everything happens through secure links sent to your district email. Each request travels through the same path:

You get an email at every step, and every email includes a personal tracking link so you always know exactly where your request stands.

Requesting a trip

For teachers, coaches, and any district staff who need transportation. No account needed.

Submitting a request

1. Start at the request page (request/start.php, linked from the district transportation page). Enter your district email and click the link that is emailed to you; it opens the form. No password is required.
2. Enter your details. Use your district email address (it must end in @fowlerusd.org). Choose your school site, the trip category, and describe the purpose.
3. Pick your destination. Start typing an address or school name and choose from the dropdown. Round trip miles and estimated cost calculate automatically. You can adjust the miles if needed.
4. Fill in trip details. Dates, departure and return times, instructor in charge, passenger counts, equipment, and any special requests such as wheelchair access.
5. Overnight trips require the board approved date and, if you have it, the board approval document (PDF, image, or Word file).
6. Submit. The email link you opened already verified your address, so there is no second confirmation. Your request goes straight to your site administrator for approval, and you get a “submitted” email with a Track this request link.

How far in advance must I submit?

These minimums are set by an administrator under Rates & policies and may change. The form checks this for you and will tell you the earliest allowed date if your trip is too soon.

Tracking your request

Every email you receive includes a Track this request button. The tracking page shows the current status, the approval checklist, your assigned driver and vehicle once scheduled, and the full activity history. Tracking links work for 30 days, and every new status email includes a fresh one.

If your site administrator asks for changes

1. You will get an email explaining what needs to change, with an edit link.
2. Open the link, update the request, and resubmit.
3. Your site administrator reviews the updated request again, and you are notified as before.

Cancelling

Open your tracking link and use the Cancel this request button. You can cancel any time before the trip runs. If the trip is already scheduled, please also call the transportation office so the driver is released promptly.

Site administrators

For the principal or site administrator who approves trips for a site. You are the only approver. No account or password needed.

1. Watch your email. When someone at your site submits a request, you receive an email titled "Action needed: transportation request awaiting your approval".
2. Click Review and decide. The page shows the full trip: who, where, when, passengers, estimated cost, purpose, and any overnight board approval.
3. Choose one of three actions:

   Action	What happens
   Approve	Your approval is recorded and the request goes straight to transportation for scheduling. The requester is told it is fully approved.
   Deny	The request ends and the requester is notified with your reason. Notes are required when denying.
   Request changes	The requester gets your notes and an edit link. When they resubmit, you receive a fresh review email.

Things to know

Your link is single use. After you submit a decision it cannot be used again. If you open it later it will simply confirm the request was handled.

Links expire after 7 days. If a request sits unreviewed for 3 days you get a reminder with a fresh link. If your link has expired, the reminder email always contains a working one, or the transportation office can resend it.

Your approval is the only one. There is no separate budget approval. Your review page shows the budget code (the account to charge: FD, RES, Y, GOAL, FN, OB, SI, LC, L2) next to the estimated cost, so you can confirm it before approving. Estimates use the district rates: $1.25 per mile for car or van, $2.10 per mile plus driver hours for bus or charter, and actual cost is reconciled after the trip from odometer readings and driver hours.

Transportation staff

For transportation department staff. You sign in with your district email and a password at /staff/login.php.

Your dashboard

After signing in you land on the dashboard: counts of requests waiting on you, upcoming scheduled trips, and an Action required queue of fully approved requests ready to schedule. The amber badge in the header shows your total pending work.

Scheduling a trip

1. Open a request from the dashboard or the All requests page.
2. In Assign & schedule, pick the driver and vehicle from the managed lists and confirm the departure and return date and times.
3. Conflict warnings: if the driver or vehicle is already booked for an overlapping window, you will see exactly which trip conflicts. You can pick someone else or check "Schedule anyway" for intentional double duty.
4. On save, the trip gets its trip number (for example TRP-2026-00042) and the requester is emailed the driver, vehicle, and key pickup instructions automatically.

The schedule calendar

The Schedule page shows a month grid of all trips. Multi day trips appear on every day they span. Click any day (or the Today button) for the day view: every trip that day with times, driver, vehicle, passenger counts, and status. The sidebar lets you generate a personal iCal feed URL to subscribe in Google Calendar, Outlook, or Apple Calendar; the URL is shown once, so copy it when you create it.

After the trip

1. Post-trip record: from the request page, log barn and destination times, odometer start and end, and driver hours. For a multi-bus trip, record this separately for each bus. Actual miles and actual cost calculate automatically and the request moves to Completed.
2. Vehicle inspection: complete the checklist (exterior, interior, tires, lights, fluids, brakes, safety and emergency equipment), fuel level, and cleanliness. Report any damage with photos and a work order number. The requester is automatically notified if damage or mechanical issues are found.

Reports

The Reports page rolls up any year by month, by site, and by trip category (request counts, estimated versus actual cost, actual miles), lists every inspection that found damage or mechanical issues, and exports each table to CSV. The All requests page also exports the currently filtered list to CSV.

Daily automatic housekeeping

Each morning the system automatically sends day-before reminders to requesters, a daily trip manifest to staff, reminder emails to site administrators who have not acted in 3 days, and cancels any old submissions still awaiting the retired email confirmation after 7 days.

System admins

For transportation staff with the admin role. Admins see extra pages: Sites, Users, and Rates & policies.

Sites

Each school site record carries its address and, critically, the site administrator name and email. When a request is submitted for a site, that address receives the approval email. A site without a site administrator email cannot be active and is not offered on the request form. When a principal changes, just edit the email here; there is no account to create or delete. Coordinates are looked up automatically from the address (used for mileage auto-calculation) and can be entered manually if the lookup fails.

Users

Staff accounts are only for the transportation department. Add a user with their district email and role:

New accounts get a temporary password shown once; share it securely and have the user change it at My account (every staff member can change their own password there). Use Reset password for lockouts. Accounts lock for 15 minutes after 8 failed sign-ins. You cannot deactivate or demote your own account.

Drivers and vehicles

Keep both lists current; they feed the scheduling dropdowns and conflict detection. Deactivate rather than delete, so history stays intact.

Rates & policies

Mileage rates, driver hourly rates, seats per bus, the lead-time rules, and the long-trip mileage threshold are edited by admins at Rates & policies (staff/settings.php). Each change is recorded with who made it and why. A request keeps the rates it was quoted at, so changing a rate never reprices an existing trip. Only the allowed requester email domain and mail settings live in the server's .env file; ask your system maintainer.

Status glossary

Frequently asked questions