Being the first can be a scary proposition. While both exciting and perhaps an honor to pioneer a manufacturer’s technology, such as propane school buses, there are certainly challenges to overcome.
But for Cathy Staggs and Tuscaloosa City Schools, reducing emissions, saving money and increasing the satisfaction of its bus drivers have been well worth any headaches, thanks to a commitment from IC Bus and its local dealer, Southland International.
The school district and others are finding that introducing innovations like alternative fuels are reaping the benefit of not only a cleaner environment and fuel cost savings but also increased driver satisfaction.
Tuscaloosa City, like many school districts across North America, is suffering from not enough school bus drivers. Dreaded driver shortages have crippled operations from Toronto to Tuscaloosa, the latter where Staggs began her first full school year in August.
One possible hurdle in the attraction of new drivers and retention of existing ones could be the traditionally low wages paid to school bus drivers, especially when considering all of the safety, child management and—now—technology responsibilities heaped on these employees. It’s an issue that has plagued the industry for decades upon decades.
Staggs came on board last December, helping the district limp home to finish the 2015-2016 school year down seven drivers. “Everybody who had a CDL, who had a school bus driver’s license in the shop, was driving. All the mechanics, all the people in the office,” she said. “If anyone was absent, the only thing to do was to double up.”
Her department recruited several school teachers to the driver corps as the summer progressed, but then in mid-July, Staggs was presented with a 220 new preschool transportation service requests for the district’s early intervention program, about double the amount from last year. To make matters worse, several drivers resigned about two weeks before the school year started on Aug. 11.
At the same time, Staggs’ department had to add new routes to accommodate a complete re-zoning of all Tuscaloosa City high schools. Not only are school buses now headed out in different directions, but, as Staggs explained, students are allowed to transfer back to the high school they attended the previous year, and school bus transportation is included.
“That has certainly impacted the program and caused us to have to add bus routes when we were already short,” she said.
The district also transports to and from four specialty programs: fine arts, STEM and magnet elementary schools and an international high school. Meanwhile, Staggs said her staff is receiving six to eight requests daily for transportation service required under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
Tuscaloosa City also closed three elementary schools and a middle school for renovations and new construction, resulting in those walk zones being essentially eliminated, as the approximately 300 students need to be relocated to schools miles away. “We’re running short right now,” Staggs added.
Similar challenges are experienced every day and in every way across the country, and the overtaxing on transportation services does not help an already depleted pool of available bus drivers. But Tuscaloosa City is responding with an aggressive pay increase for all veterans and novices, alike.
Like at most districts, Tuscaloosa City pays for all driver licensing fees after three months of service. In addition, last school year, the school board approved a sign-on bonus of $1,000 for any new applicant who already had a CDL with the school bus certification. This month, that bonus is being extended for all new drivers upon hire.
Over the summer, the school board also approved an additional 1-percent, across-the-board pay hike for all school bus drivers, no matter their years of experience. When added to a 4 percent increase provided by the Alabama State Department of Education for all teachers and other school district personnel who make less than $75,000 a year, Staggs said the starting school bus driver wage will exceed $19 an hour.
New and veteran drivers also have the quieter ride of propane school buses to look forward to after Tuscaloosa City purchased its first order of propane school buses in May of last year, with the new IC Bus CE Series vehicles hitting the road last fall.
“We’ve been using diesel buses forever,” then-Transportation Director Jimmy Boone told TuscaloosaNews.com at the time. “Propane is a cleaner-burning fuel than diesel. It’s considered a clean fuel because it has almost no greenhouse gas emissions. (Propane buses) are also much quieter. In fact, on average, when comparing a regular diesel school bus to a propane school bus, a propane bus is 11 sound decibels quieter. That will help with some of our special needs children.”
The order of 63 IC CE Series Propane buses comprised one of the manufacturer’s very first after completing the initial production run that spring. Tuscaloosa received the first 14 buses for the 2015-2016 school year. Debbie Sanford, vice president of bus operations for Southland International, recalled Tuscaloosa City CFO Ed LaVigne scheduling a conference call with the dealership, IC Bus and engine and fuel system provider PSI to ask them to make a commitment.
She said he recognized that introducing a new product would surely result in the need to address some minor issues.
“He just needed to know the commitment was going to be there,” she added.
IC Bus VP and GM Trish Reed answered the bell and dedicated “boots on the ground” to stand by the district “and that we’d be there as long as they needed us to be there,” Sanford said.
As a result, engineers from IC Bus and technicians and support staff from Southland “practically moved in” with the district’s maintenance staff over the ensuing months, Staggs said, who replaced the retiring Boone in December. Reed told STN it was an honor for IC Bus to stand by the district.
“IC Bus stands behind its products and we make every effort to help our customers achieve the highest degree of satisfaction with their buses,” Reed said. “In addition, our IC Bus dealers do an extraordinary job in supporting our customers before, during and after a sale as demonstrated in Tuscaloosa by our dealer Southland International.”
As the team addressed necessary tweaks to the fuel system and fuel door switch to prevent the bus from starting during refueling, another issue popped up. Sanford said Tuscaloosa City wanted to remove camera and two-way radio systems from older bus models and install them on the new propane buses. But with the school year underway and the new buses on route, techs had to make the changes on the weekends.
Complicating matters was the fact that state inspectors needed to approve the buses back into service. As a result, some buses were grounded for days and required the district to suspend delivery of the remaining propane order until March.
But since then, it’s been smooth sailing for Tuscaloosa City in terms of how the buses are operating, and the school board approved another order of 15 propane buses this fall, with those expected to be running this month. That brings the propane total to 78 buses in a fleet of about 130, including spares. “IC Bus stood by their product and picked up exactly on the issues,” Staggs said. “They have been very supportive.”
Despite routing and staffing concerns that have lingered for other reasons, Staggs said the propane buses are proving to be a welcome driver retention tool and are saving the district on fuel purchases. Fuel economy gains have been slower to realize, as she explained the drivers are still assimilating to the new propane buses and how they handle differently than their diesel counterparts.
“There has been a learning curve for the drivers on exactly how to drive them,” she added. “It’s almost as if the bus gets used to the driver. But the drivers have learned how to drive them as well, and I know the guys in our shop have worked really hard with the drivers on that.”
Spark-ignited propane engines are more sensitive to driver behavior for fuel economy than diesel and can require some driver behavior changes to get the best fuel economy from propane, an IC Bus spokesman said.
Last spring, one particular driver was getting “amazing fuel economy,” according to Staggs. She said Shop Foreman Shannon Swinney commented that the driver is a great candidate to train the others. Additional benefits include the quieter ride so the drivers can actually hear while on route.
“I’ll tell you what, they don’t want to give them up now,” Staggs said. “For some reason if they to be in a spare and they have to be in a diesel they aren’t happy until they get their propane back.”
That brings a smile to Sanford’s face.
“One of the highlights for me is to go to the bus shop and have drivers hug your neck and say, ‘Thank you for our new buses,’” she said. “They truly love them. They say they can hear the kids, and they don’t have as many discipline issues. It’s really gratifying.”
