Smiley Transportation

Dallas, TX

Established in January 2007, Smiley Transportation Corp. (“Smiley Transportation” or “we” or “us”) is a highly requested student shuttle service providing Keller Independent School District (“Keller ISD”) and Northwest Independent School District (“Northwest ISD”) with high quality door-to-door transportation services. Smiley Transportation started with a Kia Rio and three students, and throughout the years the shuttle service has increased to seven Ford E350 12-passenger vans and two 7-passenger minivans. The number of students utilizing Smiley Transportation has doubled every year since the business started.

Smiley Transportation is a unique shuttle service offering many types of standard and customized services to parents such as: (1) daily transportation to and from schools, (2) early practice drop-offs, (3) late after school pick-ups, (4) sick student pick-ups, (5) extracurricular activity shuttles, and (6) shuttles for summer school and summer activities.

Increasing school shuttle business has made Smiley Transportation a household name in the Keller and Northwest ISD areas:

Smiley Transportation’s core business focuses around providing safe, dependable and personalized student door-to-door transportation. Smiley Transportation’s shuttle services prevent children from facing the dangers of walking to school or being left at school during unsupervised hours. Safety is Smiley Transportation’s number one mission and parents feel at ease knowing that all of Smiley Transportation’s drivers go through background checks, CPR certification, drug screening and annual defensive driving courses. Smiley Transportation also has security cameras on each van and takes care to notify parents via electronic notification when their children have safely arrived at their destination. There is increasing demand for Smiley Transportation’s services in the neighboring school districts because of our professional and safe reputation, developed through years of experience keeping up with our students’ crazy schedules and activities.

The name of Smiley Transportation comes from a family theme based on the founders’ special needs daughter. Anyone that has met the Wetzels' daughter, now 19 years old, knows she is a happy young lady who always has a smile on her face, so the names of their businesses always have the theme of something happy in the title.

Smiley Transportation focuses on delivering a safe, dependable means of student transportation in the Northwest Dallas/Fort Worth communities of Haslet, Keller and Roanoke. Although there is school-provided transportation for some areas, there are other areas for which the schools do not provide transportation services or has a pay-for-ride service. Smiley Transportation steps into this void to serve its customers, by providing students door-to-door transportation to and from early practices, after school practices and events, and daily transportation to and from school. By utilizing Smiley Transportation, parents no longer have to worry about their children’s transportation.

Smiley Transportation generates revenues by offering the following types of transportation for parents of the students in need of our services:

• One-way door-to-door transportation 
• Round trip door-to-door transportation 
• Before school activity door-to-door transportation 
• After school activity door-to-door transportation 
• Special event shuttles (e.g., prom, homecoming, birthday)
• Summer school transportation 
• Summer camp transportation

Smiley Transportation also offers other services that help generate revenues, including: 

• Winery tours (adults) 
• Designated driver transportation (e.g., New Year’s Eve, Super Bowl)

Company culture is a key component of Smiley Transportation’s strategic advantage in this industry. Smiley Transportation dedicates significant resources towards employee development and satisfaction. Our belief is that our employees are the greatest assets we have in providing this type of service. Our employees are certified in CPR/First Aid and Bloodborn Pathogens every year. Each employee is required to undergo federal background checks at the time of hire and random checks throughout employment. We also require our employees to pass drug screens at the time of employment and random tests throughout the year. Wages are set above national averages, and regular training and team goals for the staff helps bolster loyalty and overall enthusiasm.

Smiley Transportation believes in giving back to the community. In the past few years, we have offered scholarships for transportation to needy families in our service areas. Smiley Transportation has a yearly food drive to help provide food for needy families. This has been a great morale booster for our employees and the community to be able to give back.

More and more school districts near Northwest Dallas/Ft. Worth are considering dropping pay-for-ride school buses and turning transportation services over to a third-party company. Keller ISD transitioned to third-party transportation services in the 2011/2012 school year. Keller ISD has 35 campuses serving more than 30,000 students. Enrollment in Keller ISD has more than doubled during the past 10 years and is expected to rise to more than 45,000 during the next decade, making it one of the fastest-growing school districts in Texas.

Northwest ISD is serviced by Durham Bus Services; however, Durham Bus Services placed a 2-mile radius limit on their school district, meaning that any student that lives less than 2 miles from their home campus are not eligible to receive bus services at all. The demand for student shuttle service is ever increasing in these areas with growth of double-income families and the increased traffic in the neighborhoods.

In this evolving environment, Smiley Transportation has steadily increased its presence through dependable service and solid reputation. The average Smiley Transportation vehicle services four to five schools per route. On average a van can take 25-30 students, round trip, per day. Smiley Transportation currently services 11 elementary schools, 9 intermediate schools, 10 middle schools and 6 high schools in the Keller and Northwest ISD’s. Through Smiley Transportation’s pre-registration process from existing clients this spring, currently over 110 students pre-registered for the 16/17 school year.

In addition, Smiley Transportation has also been asked to serve the following school districts in the neighboring counties: Southlake/Carroll ISD, Grapevine ISD, Frisco ISD, Lewisville ISD, Eagle Mountain/Saginaw ISD, and Birdville ISD. Smiley is set to add 2 elementary schools, 1 intermediate school, 1 middle school and 2 private schools for 2016/2017 school year with their existing fleet.

The cities that Smiley Transportation presently serve in the Northwest Dallas Fort Worth metropolitan area, including the cities of Keller, Roanoke, Haslet, Trophy Club and Justin, TX, index the nation on key metrics like household income and home value. The weighted average household income across these 5 cities is almost $125,000 – nearly 2X the national average household income. The average home value in these cities exceeds the national average by almost 1.75X1. The area is growing as well, seeing an overall population increase more than 15% in the last 5 years2. As previously noted enrollment in the Keller ISD has more than doubled during the past 10 years and is expected to rise to more than 45,000 during the next decade, making it one of the fastest-growing school districts in Texas.

¹Piinpoint.com
²www.texastribune.org