THUNDER BAY — Lakehead-area school boards will save as much as half a million dollars in transportation costs in the coming school year by using fewer buses and making other adjustments in the busing system.
The changes follow a review prompted by increasing transportation costs in the face of budgetary constraints, and the realization that many students who were eligible for busing were getting to school in other ways.
Student Transportation Services of Thunder Bay, the consortium that oversees busing for the three boards, has determined it can serve the needs of students with seven fewer buses than the 186 vehicles it used last year.
"We're estimating the savings to come in somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000," said STSTB manager Craig Murphy in an interview Monday.
With only one-third of the seats being occupied on some buses last year, officials decided they could remove an average of three buses from service to each of the six Thunder Bay high schools.
Some of these buses, Murphy told Tbnewswatch, are being redeployed to elementary schools that require additional service.
"We looked at areas that were underserviced that could use additional buses in order to hopefully have some shorter ride times as well as alleviate some buses that were particularly full," he said.
Other changes include the addition of more group bus stops, greater use of school loading zones as pickup and drop-off locations, and restricting dead-end streets on bus routes.
Murphy said parents and students of the Lakehead District Public School Board, the Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board, and Conseil scolaire de district catholique des Aurores boreales have been notified about the changes.
Details can be found online via the Parent Portal link on the STSTB website.
The first day of school for 2018-2019 is Sept. 5.
