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Product Description


The SIA Schools Mapping Admission Routeing & Transport system ( Smart system ) is a purpose-built system for Local Education Authorities. With automated street-level routeing and links to pupils’ databases, it provides significant productivity gains, and reduced costs, when processing school admissions, bus pass allocations, appeals, catchment areas, and pupil location analysis. It is the UK’s premier Education Routeing module.

It enables detailed street routes to be determined automatically, accurately and quickly, eliminating even the slightest discrepancies in the measurement of home-to-school distances. The system provides distinct advantages when presenting admissions appeals, offering the ability for high-quality graphical presentation of results.

Utilising the most accurate digital road network data available in the UK, SIA’s Smart system enables LEAs to carry out automated home-to-school distance measurements for thousands of pupils, this being a major criterion for school admissions. Features of the system are as follows;

• Fast and accurate calculation of shortest routes between specified locations
• Optional "as the crow flies" distance measurements
• Routes can be saved, amended and displayed as map overlays, especially for parent appeals
• Route from start to end via multiple pick-up points
• Optimises order of pick-up points for special need coaches, taxis and school buses
• Calculates the cost per mile of all routes
• Identification of pick-up points on a specified route
• Utilises the Address Point gazetteer for start and destination points
• Batch measurements of 1000+ pupils to any school in the LEA database
• Customised reporting – print out of route using template of choice
• Routes can be printed to any scale and issued to the public
• Spatial location via OS-based gazetteers at house, street and postcode levels
• Identification of nearest schools fulfilling specified criteria
• Graphical representation of school catchment areas
• Indication of multiple school routes
• Geocoding of pupil addresses to create map overlays
• Linking to external datasets via OCX or ODBC
• Calculation of truncated routes
• Links with major education system providers such as RM plc, Capita EMS and Foundation Software Solutions.
• Metric and mileage calculation of route distances
• Customisable road network based on Ordnance Survey OSCAR data
• Thematic Mapping for pupil performance
• Automated area, perimeter and length measurements
• Multi-user capability.

History of the Origin of Smart
SIA Limited were first approached by Wandsworth LEA to develop a system that would replace the manual mechanism of calculating routes for pupils to school. They wanted us to expand upon our original routefinder software that would make it generic in its usage within LEAs. Two factors emphasised the fact that Smart was required, 1) Open enrolment legislation placing an emphasis on meeting parental preferences, and 2) a rising pupil population chasing the same number of school places. Therefore, the final admission criterion of home-to-school distance measurement was being used more often, with the need for greater accuracy. The pressure placed on available school places meant that the number of school measurements required every year was almost doubling.

As the client base grew, especially in London ( 17 LEAs in London & 54 outside of London, use Smart ), the input from LEAs into the development of the system became critical. We now have 2 LEA user groups per annum which enables the LEA client base to input their wishes for future development of the product. SIA now issue 2 upgrade release of the Smart system per year as a result of the input into development from the LEAs.

Disadvantages of the Service prior to Smart
Traditionally, a large-scale map and a measuring wheel were used to determine home-to-school distances. This method was very time consuming and stressful, in that some home to school distances could be as little as 10 metres. Distances needed to be measured a number of times to ensure accuracy, as a mistake could affect a child’s educational experience well into the future. This could also result in a ruling against the LEA.

Before a LEA had purchased SIA’s Smart system, a measuring wheel on top of an Ordnance Survey map was used to ascertain distances from home to school. If these distances were close to the cut off points, measurements were than made on foot by a member of staff using a Trumeter measuring wheel, from the home address to the school. One of the main problems with the measuring wheel on top of the map were inaccuracies of the measurements.

Initially, many years ago, a piece of string and a ruler were used to measure the route, which later progressed onto using a map wheel (odometer). In times of disagreement between parents and the LEA with regards to the distance measured, a member of staff (sometimes with the parents present) would walk the route using a calibrated measuring wheel with 1% margin of error included.

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