Customer-oriented school bus operations for childcare centers in Korea

•Modeling school bus operation for childcare centers in Korea.•Minimum traveling time with appropriate free-choice activities time by new model.•Long traveling time with appropriate free-choice activities time by classic models.•A non-optimal but very good solution by the proposed heuristic.

The purposes of this paper are to evaluate the current school bus operations used by childcare centers in Korea, suggest an alternative to prioritize service quality for parents and children, rather than the convenience of the centers, and compare the results of the alternative with those of classic school bus operations. Although numerous studies have examined the school bus operation problem, this study addresses school bus operations at childcare centers in Korea because they are quite different from those of upper-level schools. Moreover, we consider service quality for parents and children to be the most important consideration. Using quantitative methodologies to analyze the source of route generation and scheduling problems, our research demonstrates that there is ample room for the school bus operations of childcare centers in Korea to enhance their service quality.