Ottawa Student Transportation Authority short 71 drivers as it looks to fill gaps in service

The Ottawa Student Transportation Authority is asking principals to find "creative solutions" to get students on existing bus routes and is looking at using savings from cancelled trips to fund transportation options, as thousands of students remain without a ride to school this fall.

Four weeks into the school year, the school bus operator is still working to hire 71 new drivers to fill a school bus shortage that has frustrated parents, students and politicians.

"We're down to the last five per cent," Tom D'Amico, Ottawa Catholic School Board Director of Education, told CTV News Ottawa, noting 258 runs do not have a driver. 

"Ninety-five per cent of those runs are now covered and we're chipping away at the last five per cent."

The Ottawa Student Transportation Authority's Board of Directors says it has been working to implement solutions "quickly and effectively" over the past 48 hours, including undertaking several "internal exercises" to communicate more proactively with parents and students.

In September, the OSTA announced it had signed contacts with nine out of 10 school bus operators, but warned there was a shortage of 130 bus drivers. As of Thursday, there is still a shortage of 71 drivers to help get students with the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and Ottawa Catholic School Board to school.

There have been 332 applications received as part of the Ottawa Student Transportation Authority recruitment campaign, which have been forwarded to bus operators for processing. Twelve drivers have been hired and 20 are in training.

It takes four-to-six weeks to train a driver once they are hired.

"We will continue to work with the operators who are the employers for those bus drivers and we're hoping they'll continue to fill the missing routes," D'Amico said.

"We have multiple operators; so they will be doing the interviews, they will be finding out if the candidate is qualified, they will look at the driving test that has to be done, we know for some there is outstanding medicals that they're waiting on – so it's a variety of areas the operators are working on."

It has been a tough start to the school year for the Ottawa Student Transportation Authority, which looks after school bus operations for 75,000 students. Parents, MPPs and local councillors have voiced their frustration with the OSTA over the school bus cancellations, which has forced some parents to drive their kids to school.

Earlier this week, the Ottawa Student Transportation Authority announced chief administrative officer Vicky Kyriaco has taken a leave of absence.  On Wednesday, the organization announced Cindy Owens has been appointed the interim operations manager, effective immediately.

The Ottawa Student Transportation Authority says it is now looking at several solutions to the ongoing shortage of school bus drivers, including:

• OSTA is collaborating with the Ministry of Transportation to "expedite the applications" of school bus drivers and get drivers on the road "as soon as possible"
• OSTA will "amplify" the DriveYellow recruitment campaign to increase applications
• OSTA Board of Directors is repurposing withheld payments for cancelled routes to school bus providers to "fund other solutions that result in new, available drivers' from other transportation operators"
• The OCDSB and OCSB is asking principals to look at "creative solutions" to get students on existing buses with space for students
• The Ottawa Student Transportation Authority is launching a new Parent and Community Subcommittee to address the bus driver shortage

The OSTA Board of Directors says the new subcommittee will help foster a "more direct connection with the community" to understand parents' issues better and hear possible advice to address the driver shortage.

"What we're trying to do with the subcommittee is get the voices that may have some creative solutions that haven't been considered, that haven't been looked at in the past," D'Amico said.

"We want to hear from parents, we have extremely creative principals – we want to hear from our principals with solutions, there are retired bus drivers, there's operators, there's elected officials – we want to make sure we are not missing any ideas. When we don't have a bus driver, are there other ways of getting people to school."

Two members of the subcommittee will be parents Cheri Nixon and Jennifer Bugden. Budgen launched a petition to force the firing of the head of the Ottawa Student Transportation Authority.

"Parents are having to completely adjust their schedule, lose wages, we have seen invoices up to $1,000 to $2,000, saying this is the lost wages I've done in the last month," Budgen said.

The Ottawa Student Transportation Authority is using school buses, vans and one coach company to provide bus service, and is continuing to explore options.

The school boards are asking families experiencing "crisis situations" due to the school bus driver shortage to reach out to school principals to find solutions for their individual situations.

"We've also heard that frustration that they see a bus go by or close to where they're living and they don't see the buses being filled," D'Amico said, adding principals will look for "creative solutions" to get students on existing buses.

"We want our principals to look at those scenarios to see if a parent can get their child to a different existing stop, which is on a current route, let's approve that. Let's use all the principals across the city to use their discretion, get them on (the bus)."

Parents with children receiving a school bus ride to school tell CTV News Ottawa they are receiving up-to-the-minute changes to their child's delayed or cancelled routes, often with rapidly changing information. Frustrated parents say they receive information that routes may be delayed, but are later reported as cancelled.

The Ottawa Student Transportation Authority signs a contract with a transportation provider for school bus routes, and that provider is contractually obligated to provide enough drivers to meet the transportation needs of the school boards. D'Amico says the OSTA will withhold payments for services not provided, and that money could help solve other bus driver shortages.

"Right now, we're working on updates from finances to look at what savings are there because of the cancelled routes," D'Amico said.

"The first goal of those savings is to put them towards other ways to pay for, whether it's a coach or other solutions, to get those students to school. Then we'll look at what funds remain to address safety, how can we address other safety issues at schools that are overcrowded now with parents dropping their children off."

As of right now, there is no commitment to compensate parents directly for costs incurred by driving children to school during the driver shortage.

D'Amico says OSTA continues to work with the school boards to increase wages for drivers.

Minister of Education Stephen Lecce says the province has increased wages to $23 an hour, "A significant increase in wages for our bus drivers."

"We provided an additional increase of funding of $1.8 million to that school board and even so, with additional funding, they can't get the job done."

Last week, the OSTA said it was working to address immediate safety concerns, train new drivers and prioritize phone calls. Medium and long-term plans over the next few weeks and months include using coach lines to provide shuttle service for high school students, redesign routes to combine or extend routes, change some bus stops and reassign some students to OC Transpo buses or vans.

The OSTA plans to send out a request for interest/information this month to find a new company to take over the contract serving the west end.

As the OSTA looks to get more drivers on the road, D'Amico can't say when all school bus routes will have a driver.

"It's not a quick fix when you're down to that last five per cent."

The Ontario government has launched a third-party review of the Ottawa Student Transportation Authority.

With files from CTV News Ottawa's Ted Raymond and Natalie van Rooy