From the driver’s seat, Transportant CEO Martin Staples is navigating the Lenexa-based company toward significant growth. The company’s real-time, tech-driven approach is designed to enhance safety, streamline communication, and improve efficiency for school buses. With this strategy, Transportant is expanding its presence beyond its Midwest home, Staples said.
Driving Transportant’s ambitions for national and potentially global expansion, Staples explained that the focus is on securing funding. “Our goal is to invest in more sales representatives and marketing to replicate our Kansas City success nationwide,” he said. “We already have customers in New Jersey, New York, Washington, and California, but we want better coverage across the U.S.”
To support its growth, Transportant launched a $1 million funding round, with over 70 percent already secured from existing investors, according to Staples. He emphasized the important role that Kansas City has played in developing and refining Transportant’s technological upgrades for school buses. Traditional bus safety systems have been outdated for decades, relying on solutions like hard-drive-based camera systems that require manual retrieval of footage, Staples explained. Transportant’s technology features real-time streaming, GPS tracking, and other tools to improve student safety and operational efficiency.
“We’re seeing great adoption, and we’ve established a significant market share,” Staples explained. “The product fills a gap in the market.” He detailed the advantages, stating, “With ours, you get live streaming along with a complete set of tools like GPS, turn-by-turn directions, and ridership tracking, which helps prevent students from getting off at the wrong stop.” He added, “The community welcomed that.” Staples also highlighted the importance of real-time information, stating, “If something happens, schools need to react immediately. Our system makes that possible.”
Transportant’s platform also includes a red-alert button for drivers, enabling schools to access live video and audio during incidents, and also provides a parent app that offers real-time updates on their child’s location.
Transportant has already equipped approximately 2,800 school buses and serves over 300,000 students throughout the U.S. Feedback indicates that the company’s technology is having a positive impact on schools.
According to customer feedback provided by Transportant:
- The parent app has led to up to an 80-percent reduction in parent calls to the school about students riding the bus.
- Schools have reported a 50- to 75-percent reduction in student incidents on the bus, thanks to the use of Transportant’s live cameras to support bus drivers.
- Schools have also reported a 75- to 100-percent reduction in students getting off at the wrong stop using Transportant’s solution.
To ensure its product meets the evolving needs of school districts, the company established a Customer Advisory Board two years ago, Staples said. “We’ve always stayed close to our customers,” he added. “[The advisory board] helps us develop real solutions to their problems.”
Scaling up with a strategic partnership, a collaboration with RWC Group — initially announced in April 2024 — is helping Transportant expand beyond its Midwest base and has already brought its technology to school districts in Arizona, Oregon, and Washington. “We have several opportunities taking off,” Staples reported. “Litchfield was our first Arizona customer, and because of RWC, we’re expanding into five other states.” Staples added, “School districts want to know their investment will last. It’s all about building trust.”
In its ongoing commitment to assisting districts of every size, Transportant recently launched a new consulting service, called Transportant Solutions. The service provides smaller districts with limited staff access to a fractional transportation consultant to manage their systems.
“Many small schools, with under 30 buses, have very limited staff,” Staples said. “We provide a fractional expert to monitor their system and handle the work.” He pointed out how this service meets a big need: “For many districts, transportation is just one of many responsibilities,” Staples concluded. “We take that burden off their shoulders.”
