New SD 57 school bus service bringing high tech to Prince George

Waiting for a school bus on a dark and cold December day exposed to the elements is not any kid’s idea of a good time.

If only there was a way to know exactly when that bus was coming through the neighbourhood? Students could delay leaving the warm comfort of their homes until the last minute.

That will become a possibility starting this September, when First Student Inc., takes over as the bus contractor for School District 57, serving about 3,500 students on 63 operating routes in Prince George, Mackenzie, McBride and Valemount.

The company will be bringing a brand-new bus fleet when it sets up shop at its Prince George base at the north end of Boundary Road near the airport and all those buses will be equipped with GPS devices that will allow parents, students and school district administrators to use an app to track when and where the bus will arrive.

“We’re  thrilled to get into the Prince George market and we bid this contract with a brand-new fleet,” said Yacine Belhadj, First Student’s Western Canadian area general manager. “Newer buses handle themselves better, come winter, with the new technologies.

“Really what sets us apart from the competition is our approach in how we deliver students to school and to home by using the latest technology to enhance that experience. For the parents, they get a first-view app that tracks the location of your child’s bus and checks in if there’s a mechanical delay or weather delay, it pushes the notification. It eases the workload on our end and the school district’s end instead of having 200 parents wondering what’s going on and where the bus is.”

Drivers will each have onboard tablet computers that show them the route they need to follow to pick up students and drop them close to their homes. First Student also has a failsafe plan to avoid a sleeping child getting left behind in the bus after the route has been completed. Each driver is required to walk down the aisle and look under the seats for a potentially hidden student and then touch a sensor at the back of the bus to show that task has been completed.  The bus engine won’t turn off until that switch is activated.

“We search to find those sleeping children, it happens quite a bit where the drivers are doing their student checks and they find somebody sleeping and we celebrate those moments with our team because nobody wants a child left behind,”  said Katie Merchant, First Student’s area safety manager for B.C./Alberta. “Keeping the children safe is our Number 1 priority.”

The century-old Cincinnati, Ohio-based company operates a fleet of 50,000 buses all over North America. First Student trains its drivers how to deal with unruly student behaviour and provides them with tools and tactics to help them take care of kids with developmental disabilities. Drivers will be ranked according to their driving habits and their performance behind the wheel, with demerits issued for such transgressions as speeding, hard braking, rapid acceleration and extended idling time, which are tracked every day in the system. The top five-star drivers will be eligible for company-provided incentives such as gift cards.

School district staff will have the ability to track student conduct on the buses, while parents and community members will have access to an online tool to provide immediate feedback to the company to address any concerns.  

Each of the approximate 3,500 students now being bused by the local school district lives beyond a four-kilometre radius of their catchment school. The contract with the new provider covers rides to and from school, not extracurricular or sporting activities. It’s up to individual schools to arrange buses to meet those other student needs.

First Student, Inc., will take over in September from Diversified Transportation, which has been the SD 57 busing contractor for 15 years. The eight-year contract, $5 million contract will expire in 2030. The sharp spike in fuel costs has added significantly to the cost of providing bus service. The contract was put to tender and the choice to go with First Student was approved by a committee and school board trustees.

“The new contracts are up about 25-30 per cent,” said SD 57 assistant superintendent Lee Karpenko. “Our current service provider, of course, had fuel surcharges built in and all the contracts have surcharges built in based on the price of fuel. Costs are going up and there is certainly an effect on the  school district. Every month it goes up depending on the price of fuel.”

First Student operates electric buses in Quebec and some school districts on Vancouver Island are piloting EVs. Belhadj said the Quebec and federal government provided grant money for 260 electric school buses and he’s hoping to see Prince George take advantage of any government programs to make the switch to electric to help reduce transportation costs.

“Cost is one thing but at the end of the day we also have to look at the communities we serve and taking care of our planet,” said Belhadj. “We’re two years into our electrification program ad we’ve been leading the pack. Quebec has been throwing a lot of money at it and we were able to mobilize that fairly quick and I don’t see B.C. being that far behind.”

First Student is hosting an open house next Wednesday from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at its Prince George headquarters at 1780 Boundary Rd. The company has already had one job fair in the city and will be back on Wednesday to interview drivers, mechanics, administrative and management staff. The 20,454 square-foot building has five drive-through bays to service the buses.