Aging school buses and drivers continue to be challenges facing Central Okanagan Public Schools.

Gail Prokopchuk, school district transportation manager, says while the school bus fleet has added six electric buses over the last three years, there are limitations to how far the buses can travel for field trips completed between morning and afternoon routes.

She says her department has to develop a plan to replace 13 buses over the next two years.

As most of these buses are natural gas fueled, which is no longer available for purchase, Prokopchuk said a comprehensive report with data analysis will be done to determine the implementation and purchase of additional electric buses.

While the manufacturers market the electric buses as having a 200 kilometre trip range, Central Okanagan electric school buses tend to fall in the 100-150 km range, and dropping down to the 50 km range in winter under -10C.

Behind the wheel, Prokopchuk says since September 2020, 37 of the 70 full-time drivers retired. And of the 89 drivers full- and part-time on staff at that time, 67 were over the age of 65.

She says currently, job recruiting efforts now have about 100 drivers to draw on for 71 bus routes that must be serviced.

鈥淲e are continuing to actively recruit but it has been a bit of a challenge,鈥� she said.

Prokopchuk provided an update on transportation issues facing the school district to the planning and facilities committee meeting last Wednesday.

She said during the 2023-24 school year, her department will implement a software program called 鈥淭yler Drive,鈥� a computer tablet mounted in every school bus.

The tablet program will provide drivers with turn-by-turn directions for their route, particularly helpful for the district鈥檚 casual drivers, and also manage student ridership as each student will be assigned an ID card which they can scan when entering and leaving the bus.

Tyler Drive will also assist management by showing live vehicle tracking, recording employee hours, and reporting pre-post-trip vehicle inspections which are submitted to the school district public works yard, alerting technicians when there is a mechanical defect to ensure immediate attention can be provided.

From a safety and security standpoint, Prokopchuk said Tyler Drive will enable 鈥渢o have a lot of information at our fingertips.鈥�

She added her department has developed a communication plan for parents and schools which has proven very successful for the assignment, management and collection of transportation fees.

In terms of ridership, there were 5,298 school bus transportation applications for the 2023-24 school year were received between Jan. 31 and May 31, 2023.

For the 2022-23 school year, 4,923 students were transported on school buses, while there were 439 students on a waitlist.