Alberta school buses have been late for years, but there’s hope that may change
Alberta school buses have been late for years, but there’s hope that may change
I'm a school bus driver myself. I'll tell you the issue is that they're short drivers because they pay peanuts. The buses are coming that late because drivers are doing routes after their first routes. All the school bus companies somehow pay the exact same rates. There is no competition between them, but "they're trying everything."
They have a set amount they are being paid and increasing cost for parts, insurance, and fuel.
I'm guessing the only thing they can control is wages. There's always someone willing to step in at the lower wage but, seriously folks, try doing this job. It's nuts.
In addition to:
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driving a bus full of screaming children (literally, my kids bus had an epidemic of kids screaming as loud as they could to see how mad it made the driver, they had to remove some kids permanently to make them stop),
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constantly being exposed to every virus you can think of, and
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manuevering a massive vehicle through streets clogged by parked double wide pick-up trucks ('Berta!)
You are also working odd hours for crap pay.
Then your colleagues start calling in sick, or quitting because some kid spit on them, or they don't want to drive after a bad storm (they don't close schools here, they will sometimes not run buses but I've seen them run when it really wasn't safe) and you end up working double routes with parents giving you a hard time.
It's no wonder the drivers are frustrated.
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Can confirm that school buses are almost always lard for my daughter's field trips.
All the school bus companies somehow pay the exact same rates. There is no competition between them
School bus lines tend to be natural monopolies as the school boards – which are also monopolies – typically contract all the bussing required from one provider, so I don't discount your no competition assertion.
But all businesses converging on the same price is also a sign of strong competition. In a competitive market each player will keep sharpening their pencils until there is no room left. Once the pencils have been sharped to where they can be sharpened no more, everyone will end up in the same place. Only in a market lacking competition can there be room for price to diverge.
Edmonton has at least 6 private companies contracted to the school boards running busses. Busses running an hour and a half late on the daily is a failure for a transportation business. If these private companies can’t get our kids to school on time then maybe the province needs to step in.
maybe the province needs to step in.
That's exactly what they don't want to do.
There is almost no chance the contract doesn't stipulate when the busses must arrive. But what are you going to do with that? Sue the bus lines for breach of contract and put them out of business? Okay, cool, but then you're going to have to pay more to whoever rises up to take their place. Or you can pay more to the lines that exist, to allow them more room to pay for staff, but then you have to pay more. Or you can build your own line, which will require paying the most of all (short term, at least).
There is no alternative that won't see the province paying more. Which they don't want to do because then they have to raise taxes. There is nothing that scares a province more than having to raise taxes. The people of the province stop playing nice when taxes go up. Especially in Alberta.