NORTHEAST — Thanks to a complete complement of drivers and good weather, there hasn’t been a lot of school bus cancellations over the fall
At the Jan. 15 North East School Division meeting, board members quite literally knocked on the wood of their desk they were meeting on.
“At this moment in time we got a full [slate] of drivers and mechanics and we haven’t lost a lot of weather days, and we haven’t lost a lot of days because we didn’t have access to drivers,” said Don Rempel, the division's director of education.
From September to November last year there was 126 route cancellations. This year that was down to 68.
“We’ve had trouble with weather and we’ve had trouble filling routes in recent times,” Rempel said. “Most of our buses are running most days.”
The board regularly monitors bus routes, including the age of the buses, capacity, the longest one-way ride (91 minutes) and the number of routes unfilled by drivers.
“It’s a requirement to monitor our transportation services, so it’s a good value-added process for the board to look at that template three times a year. We get an update so we can see how things are working in that area.”
This year from September to November, there were 2,803 total students transported.
