A trustee with the Hastings Prince Edward District School Board wants to see senior staff for Tri-Board Student Transportation at an upcoming meeting.
At the February 9 meeting of the Physical Planning, Finance and Building Committee, Sidney and Frankford Trustee (Quinte West) Ernie Parsons said he has concerns with the local busing operation.
The member school boards of Tri-Board are the Limestone District, Algonquin & Lakeshore Catholic, and Hastings Prince Edward District School Board.
On the Tri-Board Student Transportation website, the company has a posted mission statement:
“Tri-Board Student Transportation Services is responsible for safe, secure, efficient transportation to our school communities using one joint Transportation Policy created by our Member School Board.”
HPE Trustee Parsons’ main concern is with the new Request for Proposal (RFP) for new operators.
The RFP awarded the 600+ routes to five different operators, none of which have local ownership. FULL DETAILS HERE.
The closest is in Burlington, while others have ownership in the United States, France, and Germany.
Trustee Ernie Parsons:
“But I have grave concerns about Tri-Board. I wrote to them as an individual because I wanted to, and I asked them for the new operators, what percentage of the new operator’s buses failed their mandatory tests. Their answer, “That’s not public information, we won’t tell you that. If you really want to know, you can go through a Freedom of Information process, you can pay and get it.”
Parsons says that people will have concern with that answer.
“I think if you ask the parents in this county, are you concerned whether your child’s bus is safe or not, they should get an answer because it’s going to be of top importance to them.”
Director of Education for the Hastings Prince Edward District School Board Katherine MacIver says she respects Trustee Parsons’ perspective.
“I don’t share it, but it is a Tri-Board issue, or that we have safety issues, we have a funding issue, and we provide great service to families for a number of years because we’ve been able to manage it. This is staff coming forward and saying we’re going to have difficulty managing this on a go-forward basis.”
She told trustees that there is a new funding model for transportation from the provincial government.
“And you have probably seen over the last two years, across the province, boards having difficulties to manage their transportation, in light of the funding that is received from the Ministry of Education.”
MacIver says they will have some tough decisions ahead of them.
Meanwhile, Tri-Board CEO Jeremy DaCosta says they evaluate bids based on safety, delivery, and price.
“When we conducted the evaluation for the request for proposals and for the proposals we received, the evaluation was not solely focused on price. The evaluation was weighted 75 per cent on the technical elements, or the delivery of service, and 25 per cent on price. Approach to safety and reliability, things that are really important in terms of transporting our students.”
In total there were 11 bids, with five companies being awarded the 617 routes, again none local.
Craig Smith, who owns C Smith Bus Lines in Belleville/Wooler says they struggled with the bidding process.
“We don’t do multiple RFPs. This is the first RFP in Tri-Board, so it’s very difficult for my team to answer everything 100 per cent. It was really weighted towards the multinational companies.
Smith says his company scored the best on the price portion of the bid.
Tri-Board CEO DaCosta says on the technical side of the scoring they looked at a number of things.
“The drivers and the onboard monitors that travel on the bus, the way in which bus companies recruit and train those staff, things around the reliability and dependability of the fleet of the vehicles. There is an evaluation related to customer service, in terms of how parents and families and the school boards receive service from any of the bus companies, and a category around student safety and well-being as well, that looked at things like the way in which a bus company reviewed safety concerns and approach safety concerns that come to their attention.”
He says safety is a major priority.
“Your students when they are riding on vehicles operated by bus companies on behalf of Tri-Board Transportation are safe, and if we had any concerns at any point that students were not safe, those would be addressed immediately.”
