To Manage Shortages, Bus Companies Get Creative As The School Year Approaches
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Local bus garages need to get creative fast as the start of the school year approaches.
The buses are inspected, clean and ready to hit the road. But not all of them will.
Melanie Ribblet needs another 20 drivers. She manages 64 employees at A.J. Myers & Sons and she's offering incentives.
"We do free training. We try to get them cleared to be a non-lit driver so that they are driving and training at the same time," Ribblet said.
Her family-run bus company in Turtle Creek blames the shortage on four things: retirements, fear, drivers making more on unemployment and tough testing for cdl licenses. That's why the Pennsylvania School Bus Association stepped in to spread the word.
"We're running a Facebook ad campaign right now. We're running a digital display ad campaign, YouTube ads," said Ryan Dellinger, the executive director of the Pennsylvania School Bus Association.
A district like Baldwin-Whitehall runs its own bus garage in-house. Still, it's short drivers for 15 percent of its runs. Now, the district is changing start and end times.
"We're going to shorten the school day to allow a little bit of a longer window in the front and a longer window in the back to have these double runs," said Baldwin-Whitehall School District Superintendent Dr. Randal Lutz. "We're doing the expanded walking zones to and from bus stops. We're asking parents to drive. We put surveys out and about 10 percent of our parents are saying they can provide their own transportation."
Districts and bus companies hope future state legislation makes the CDL testing requirements more palatable for people just interested in driving yellow buses. Garages told KDKA that increased funding would mean increased pay for the drivers.