BusPlan vs Guardian Route
BusPlan
github.com
Guardian Route
guardianroute.appSide by side
| Figure | BusPlan | Guardian Route |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · School Bus Routing Software | 8.3 (#6) | 7.2 (#17) |
| Headquarters | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA | Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minnesota |
| Integrations | The documented workflow uses OpenStreetMap extracts with OpenTripPlanner for routing and OptaPlanner for optimization. | The privacy policy names Google Maps for routing and geocoding, Supabase and Vercel for hosting, Twilio for messaging, and optional Samsara vehicle telematics; the FAQ also lists OneRoster 1.1 and 1.2 plus SFTP and CSV/Excel import for student data. |
| Intended users | The project describes its goal as reducing public school budgets and helping students spend less time riding to school. | The platform is built for school districts and bus contractors, including contractors serving multiple districts from one account. |
| Purpose | BusPlan generates school bus routes for existing students, stops, and school locations, optimizing for minimum bus drive time. | Guardian Route combines K-12 school transportation routing, live GPS tracking, parent communication, driver safety, attendance, field trips, and cost analytics in one platform. |
| Security | The repository page does not state any product-specific security certifications or compliance claims. | The security page states that the platform uses TLS 1.3 in transit, AES-256-GCM for credentials and API tokens at rest, row-level district isolation, role-based access controls, and administrative MFA. |
Plans
In their own words
BusPlan
BusPlan is a free, open-source tool for school districts that generates optimized routes from existing student, stop, and school-location data. It seeks to minimize bus driving time and can impose a maximum student ride-time constraint. The workflow accepts CSV files for locations, students, candidate stops, stop eligibility, and garage bus limits. Preparation instructions create candidate stops within one mile of each student and calculate walking-distance eligibility. OpenStreetMap extracts are used to build OpenTripPlanner routing graphs, which supply route costs. OptaPlanner provides the constraint-solving engine. Results are CSV files listing ordered stops for each route and assigning students to route-and-stop combinations. A script calculates student ride times, and a Jupyter notebook supports route analysis. BusPlan is distributed as source code and setup instructions on GitHub under the Apache License, Version 2.0. The repository does not list a packaged desktop or mobile download or a support service.
Guardian Route
Guardian Route has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.