There's a new face at transportation and software provider Zūm, but it's one who's not quite human. It's a new AI assistant built into Zum CMX.

According to the company's announcement today, Zoe turns each district’s own data into clear answers and next steps, helping teams solve problems faster so every student starts the day on time and is ready to learn.

With more than one in five students chronically absent in the 2024-25 school year, and seven in 10 school districts surveyed facing driver shortages, the need for faster, smarter decision-making is significant. Zoe is built directly into Zum CMX, a unified system that connects every aspect of student mobility in one platform. It offers a single source of real-time data across the entire operation, delivering insights, identifying underlying issues, and recommending actionable steps to improve performance.

Zum said data is protected under its existing data privacy and security commitments. 

How Zoe Helps Transportation Teams

Zoe is designed as a colleague who can simultaneously read routes, runs, and timesheets. It can:

• Improve on-time performance (OTP): Zoe assesses overall OTP and separates isolated incidents from recurring patterns. School mobility leaders can review trends at a glance and receive recommendations for recurring route and timing issues.
• Improve route coverage: By identifying routes that routinely need cover drivers or are frequently split, Zoe helps show the pattern. Zoe can compare the current version of a route or run with a prior one and summarize what's changed. 
• Control avoidable pay costs: By spotting unusual paid-hour patterns, Zoe is able to drill into repeated extra stops or unexplained dwell time using historical telematics and surface specific instances for review and operational efficiency. 
• Quickly learn product functionality: Zoe helps transportation teams make the most of Zum CMX by allowing them to ask questions and receive up-to-date, step-by-step guidance tailored to their specific needs and the latest product capabilities.

“In student transportation, every minute matters. Having real-time visibility into our operations is critical, but the real value comes from being able to quickly understand what the data is telling us and take action,” said Tomas Beccar Varela, interim executive director of transportation, San Francisco Unified School District. “We see promise in tools like Zoe that can make complex transportation data easier to access, interpret, and analyze. As we evaluate these capabilities, our focus remains on making more informed operational decisions, improving service reliability, and providing a better transportation experience for students and families.”

“AI is only as powerful as the system and data behind it,” said Ritu Narayan, founder and CEO of Zum. “For decades, student mobility has relied on outdated, disconnected systems that limit visibility and efficiency. We built Zum CMX to change that. Now, with Zoe, we're embedding AI directly into the operating system, turning real-time data into actionable intelligence. This isn't AI layered onto outdated technology. It's AI built into the entire system, synthesizing actionable insights from comprehensive operational data captured through multiple daily touch points, helping districts make smarter decisions, improve reliability and deliver a better experience for students and families.”

Zum said Zoe marks the next evolution of Zum CMX and the company's mission to reimagine one of the nation's largest mass mobility systems. Zum works with more than 7,500 schools across 19 states for Zum CMX.