More school bus service restored

The state Department of Education is expanding a pilot initiative to rein in its transportation costs and will be reinstating bus service next month for 200 Oahu students whose routes were eliminated last year due to budget cuts.

The department said the restored service is possible because of early successes with its so-called "Get on Board" initiative. A phased overhaul began this school year with bus routes serving 30 schools and about 4,000 students in the Aiea/Moanalua/Pearl City/Radford/Waipahu complex areas.

The pilot involves revamped vendor contracts and new technology that for the first time is collecting real-time data on routes and riders. Registered student riders are assigned cards with magnetically coded information to swipe when getting on and off buses, while buses are equipped with GPS trackers.

At the start of the school year, the DOE restored service for about 350 students within the pilot area, which was selected in part because existing contracts were set to expire. The additional reinstated routes serve August Ahrens Elementary, Highlands Intermediate, and Pearl City and Waipahu High schools.

Under the department’s previous contracting model, it paid for buses by routes, regardless of how many students were taking advantage of the service. Now, it pays for buses for an allotment of time which requires the department to more efficiently manage routes for the approximately 39,000 general education students using the service.

Ray L’Heureux, assistant superintendent for school facilities and support services, has said the next phase of the overhaul will involve expanding the new contracting and procurement model and technologies to the rest of Oahu. Neighbor island contracts will be revised for the following school year.

In summer 2012, the department was faced with a $17 million shortfall for student transportation when lawmakers refused to fund escalating costs. As a result, the department cut 103 routes serving 51 schools, leaving more than 2,000 students statewide without school bus service.

Between 2006 and 2012, the cost of providing student transportation nearly tripled to $72.4 million, a report by the state auditor found last year. The audit concluded the DOE had essentially lost control of its school bus program, failing to address anti-competitive behavior among contractors and allowing costs to dramatically increase.

A subsequent DOE-commissioned study called for a complete redesign of the student transportation branch to rein in costs.