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From last school year to this one, the St. Lucie County (Fla.) Public Schools reduced the number of buses it operates from 399 to 362, despite opening two new schools. Add in some other smart changes in policy, and the district lowered its annual transportation costs by more than $3 million over last year. Saving $3 million a year doesn’t come easily, especially since the district wanted to keep the adverse impact on service to a minimum. Solutions included analyzing bus route efficiency, promoting walking or bicycling, and shifting school schedules. “We use data to drive our decisions—our management structure will look at data almost weekly,” says Marty E. Sanders, the executive director of growth management, land acquisition and intergovernmental relations for the board of education of St. Lucie County.
For most of last year, it looked like the cost of fuel might upend the budget of nearly every district in the country. While the price of oil might have returned to earth, diesel fuel is still on average $1 more per gallon than gasoline, and in today’s environment, money is tighter than ever. Consider this: The total cost of operating one bus for a year is about $50,000, and bus service can eat up 3 to 10 percent of the district’s budget, according to Trans-Par, a student transportation consulting firm based in Lee’s Summit, Mo.
But the bottom line is more than financial. If 700 students in a district started walking or biking a two-mile round-trip route to school instead of taking the bus, more than 11,500 pounds of carbon monoxide, as well as more than 230,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, would be kept out of the atmosphere in a school year, according to the National Safe Routes to School Task Force. And those students would have spent 84,000 hours being active.
No one is more pleased with the enthusiasm generated by this reality than Sean Miller, director of education at the Earth Day Network, which grew out of the original Earth Day in 1970 and steers environmental awareness worldwide. In 1964, about 40 percent of American students walked or biked to school. Today only 20 percent do, which has led to higher obesity among youths, a greater disconnect with nature and an increase in gas consumption. “We seek to green America’s schools, and one of the best ways to do that is through your school’s transportation system,” Miller says. He adds that “it’s great to see individuals take action on a local level,” instead of such action just being about the Arctic polar bear or endangered species.
Miller identifies various safe and sustainable ways to get kids to school, such as bicycling and walking, certain bus policies, and better site placement of schools. In addition, the Earth Day Network is kicking off this month an anti-idling campaign for all buses nationwide, recommending that bus drivers don’t let their buses idle for more than 30 seconds, either when starting up or waiting for students to board. For each bus that reduces idling by five minutes each day, 7.5 pounds of fuel are saved each year, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
A More Efficient Bus Route
The twin variables to building a better bus route couldn’t be more elemental: time and space. The bus itself, the driver’s paycheck, and the fuel are sunk costs—they’re essentially the same if one child is riding or 50. So fi lling as many seats as possible is crucial. There’s a catch, however. Most districts try to keep the amount of time students ride the bus to no more than 45 minutes, or an hour at most. But with the clock ticking from when the first child boards the bus, it often is impossible to maximize the number of riders in a timely way. “Most buses run out of time before they run out of seats,” says Kyle Martin, vice president of TransPar. “It’s critical to look at any runs that can be combined. But first and foremost, you have to manage your starting bell times, so one bus can be used several times over.”
More than 90 percent of the districts TransPar works with have different bell times for their schools, but typically, they have one start time for all high schools, one for all middle schools, and one for all elementary schools. Of those, Martin says, half could probably change some start times to help bus routing. “When you schedule the bell times more efficiently, you’re not reducing transportation, just changing the time of it,” he notes.
