THUNDER BAY - A bus driver shortage that caused some issues for Thunder Bay students and their families last year has been resolved, at least for now.
Craig Murphy, transportation consortium manager for Student Transportation Services of Thunder Bay (STSTB), says "We're doing actually quite good...We have enough drivers to cover all our routes."
STSTB is a consortium of the Lakehead District Public School Board, the Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board and the Conseil Scolaire de District Catholique des Aurore Boreales.
Last year, Murphy said, "we did have routes in certain areas that did struggle to have regular drivers on them. The bus companies were having a hard time providing drivers for them."
In an interview with Tbnewswatch.com, he said the situation was resolved over the summer, and as of this week there are drivers for all 187 routes.
Each route services two or three schools, and the drivers transport 14,000 students daily.
Murphy said that when the driver shortage developed last year, in consultation with Iron Range Bus Lines and First Student Services "in many cases we did a route doubling where we would have one or more buses pick up the stops on the route that couldn't run, which did result in some late buses and late pickups."
He said that while most of the students affected were able to ride on a school bus most of the time, there were isolated instances last year where students could not be picked up.
According to Murphy, in those cases, parents were contacted, told the situation was beyond the STSTB's control, "and they found other means to get their students to and from school. But those were very limited, maybe one or two days. It wasn't an ongoing thing."
He said the STSTB made sure it was communicating as much as possible with families affected by the driver shortage, and parents were very understanding.
Murphy noted that bus driver recruiting and retention is proving to be a challenge for school systems across Ontario and Canada.
Over the past several months, he said, the local operators "were able to identify some reasons and institute recruiting incentive programs as well as looking within their own processes and policies to improve their driver retainer programs."
Murphy said the companies worked diligently starting last spring and through the summer to hire new drivers, train them, and get them licensed and ready for the new school year.
He emphasized that driver shortages are not an individual company issue, but an industry-wide problem that Thunder Bay is not immune to.
"We are working in partnership with our contracted bus operators to ensure we are providing whatever support they need in recruiting and retaining drivers," he said.
