The Route of the Problem

Scope of investigation

19My investigation focused on the Toronto District and Toronto Catholic District school boards, which experienced intense service disruptions on a significant scale in September 2016. However, our Office spoke with other school boards that were also affected by busing problems around the same time. Student Transportation of Peel Region told our investigators about significant service issues at the start of the September 2016 school year. They told us that, as of December 2016, 3,000 students were affected by these disruptions. We also heard about transportation disruptions in the Hamilton-Wentworth District and Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District school boards, where staff told us approximately 1,500 students were affected. Although I did not expand my investigation to include these other boards, I am hopeful that this report and recommendations will help school boards throughout the province improve their oversight of student transportation and better respond to delays and disruptions.

20During our investigation, we also heard from stakeholders who raised concerns about the procurement framework that governs busing contracts in the province, as well as issues with bus driver pay and working conditions. These matters were largely outside the scope of this investigation, which was limited to whether the Toronto boards’ oversight of student transportation and their response to delays and disruptions at the start of the 2016-2017 school year was adequate.[3]

Legislative framework

22Under the Education Act, school boards are self-governing bodies entitled to establish their own transportation eligibility criteria and policies[4]. There is no legislated requirement that boards provide busing for students. However, the Act excuses children from attending school if transportation is not provided by a board and there is no school within a prescribed distance from their residence[5]. In Ontario, most school boards arrange transportation for eligible students, usually by school bus.

Ministry of Education

23The Ministry of Education plays an important financial role in student transportation. It provides the bulk of operating funding to school boards, through the annual Grants for Student Needs program, also known as the “funding formula”[6]. For the 2016-2017 school year, the total transportation grant amounted to $896.6 million.

School boards

24School boards establish policies and eligibility criteria related to student transportation. To deliver these services efficiently, those in the same geographic area typically join together to establish a body to assist with arranging transportation, referred to as a consortium. They are represented on the boards that govern these consortia, and must provide them with information about their schools and students to assist in administering the transportation program.

25School boards are not required by law to establish consortia, but since 2000, the Ministry of Education has provided financial incentives to those that chose to do so.

26Since 2011, school boards have been required under the Broader Public Sector Accountability Act, 2010 and its related directive to use competitive procurement for contracts greater than $100,000[7]. Given their size, all student transportation contracts must be awarded using an open, fair, transparent and competitive procurement process. Procurements must be advertised through an electronic tendering system accessible to all Canadian suppliers, and suppliers must be given at least 15 days to respond.

Transportation consortia

27While some consortia are incorporated as legal entities separate from the boards that created them, many are not. Today, there are 33 transportation consortia in the province, and virtually all student transportation service is co-ordinated through them.

28Typically, a consortium is responsible for:

(a) Administering the transportation policies of member school boards;
(b) Planning transportation services for member school boards, including designing routes, identifying eligible students, determining student pickup and drop-off locations and times, and managing student information required by school bus operators;
(c) Contracting with school bus operators to provide student transportation services and monitoring operators’ service performance; and
(d) Performing audits on school bus operators to ensure compliance with legislation, regulations, and contractual terms between the consortium and the operators.

Bus operators

29School bus operators are contracted by consortia and are responsible for providing transportation services that comply with legislative and regulatory requirements, as well as the contractual provisions between the operator and the consortium. There are more than 200 school bus operators in Ontario that provide publicly funded student transportation.

 

30Most school bus drivers are employees of bus operators. For most students, parents, and school administrators, bus drivers are the face of student transportation.

31The bus driver position is part-time, usually split-shift (i.e. they work in the morning and afternoon with a break in between), and low-paying, relative to other jobs that require a specialized driving license. It is also demanding work that can require supervising up to 70 children while safely navigating congested city streets. There is a chronic shortage of drivers and a high rate of attrition and turnover. One bus operator representative told us the company loses 15% of its drivers every year. We were told retention issues have worsened in recent years due to increased competition for drivers from other industry employers.

32Typically, bus drivers are attached to specific routes, schools, or children, and will work for the operator that has the route they want. Bus operators told us that drivers often refuse to drive routes they do not like, insist on selecting their own routes, and quit if a route is changed too often or too significantly. Drivers may also commit to driving for multiple bus operators in the months preceding the start of school and then choose their preferred route and employer at the last moment. We heard of one case where a bus driver quit one operator to work for another – leaving the bus parked in a public place – without any notice to the original employer. We were also told drivers are not normally paid for the time it takes to get to and from where their buses are parked, and for that reason, they may refuse routes that are too far from their home. This was a significant factor in September 2016, when bus operators were given routes in parts of the city where they had not recruited drivers.

 

Toronto Student Transportation Group

34The Toronto Student Transportation Group is an unincorporated consortium that was created in September 2011 under agreement between the Toronto District School Board and the Toronto Catholic District School Board. The Transportation Group procures and manages transportation for the two boards. Its 2016-2017 budget was nearly $100 million.

 

Toronto school bus operators

40There are seven school bus operators that service about 1,750 routes in Toronto, covering more than 74,000 kilometres each day. Separate from these operators, the Toronto District board also maintains a fleet of 13 large school buses and a roster of full-time drivers to operate them. The Toronto Catholic District board does not have its own fleet.

41The contracts entered into by the boards require that operators meet specified service standards including that they:

• Have a dedicated driver for each route and a sufficient number of spare drivers to cover for absent drivers. Operators must notify the boards when they have more routes than available drivers;

• Adhere to scheduled pick-up and delivery times unless “unusual circumstances” occur. If a bus will be delayed more than 15 minutes, the bus operator must directly notify parents of students with special needs. Operators must also notify schools and the consortium if students will arrive at school late;

• Ensure that students who participate in the “Purple Equals Parent” program (which uses purple tags on backpacks to identify children who must be met when dropped off) are not dropped off without a responsible individual present;

• Equip all buses with GPS tracking;

• Use a public notification system to provide parents with information about late buses in a variety of formats (e.g. email, text, phone call); and

• Maintain a sufficient number of phone lines and office staff to address inquiries from the public, schools, and families. One dedicated phone number must be provided to the Transportation Group for its sole use.

42Failure to meet these requirements entitles the boards to take remedial action, such as imposing financial penalties, assigning routes to another operator, and/or terminating the service contract. For instance, the contract provides that an operator can be penalized $2,000 when a driver drops off a student unsupervised who has a purple tag displayed.

43To meet their obligation to report bus delays, operators use a special computer program that can be accessed by the Transportation Group and individual schools. Information about delays is also transmitted to a website – www.torontoschoolbus.org – that can be accessed by parents, schools, and the general public.

Harbinger of crisis

45Six-year-old Adam lives with autism spectrum disorder. Transitions are particularly difficult for him. The first day of school, September 6, 2016, he waited anxiously for the school bus to arrive. As time passed without the familiar yellow bus coming into sight, his mother became increasingly concerned. She tried to contact the bus operator to find out what was going on, but couldn’t get through. Finally, she was forced to stay home from work to take Adam to school and back. She continued to do so for an entire week. As would soon become apparent, Adam was not alone.

46Similar scenarios were materializing throughout the city. In an email to the board, one Catholic District board principal said that on the first day:

"…our last bus arrived at, yes really, 10:30 a.m. for an 8:30 a.m. school. A Grade 2 [student]…was left stranded at their bus stop for over two hours and [was] only picked up because another parent called me and advised me… His mother had left him there because she couldn’t wait anymore because she had to get to work."

47At the height of the service disruption, some 2,687 students were directly affected. About 2,400 of them were assigned to large-capacity buses; 300 were students with special transportation needs. The Transportation Group told us that at the worst point, 20 large-capacity and 27 special education routes did not have assigned drivers. However, the number of affected routes was much higher, since some drivers were servicing not only their routes, but portions of the driverless routes. Some students were affected for a few days, but others were subject to delays and disruptions for months.

First day of school: “Tomorrow will be better”

56While students and their families grappled with their personal transportation nightmares on the first day of school, the Transportation Group and the two Toronto school boards remained relatively oblivious to the situation.

57When buses began picking up students on September 6, 2016, the Toronto Student Transportation Group and the Toronto boards initially thought things were going as well as could be expected for the first day. They knew of some transportation disruptions in the morning and afternoon, but they attributed this to new drivers, teachers, students and parents getting accustomed to their routes. After the morning buses completed their routes, the Transportation Group’s Operations Manager emailed the Toronto District board that the first morning was “not smooth, but no first day is smooth.” In an update to both boards around 12:30 p.m., the Operations Manager assured them that “tomorrow will be better” because drivers would have experience with the routes and operators would improve in covering vacant routes and providing notification about any residual service issues.

58In reality, thousands of parents and children were spending hours waiting for buses that were late or never showed up and some young and vulnerable students were being let off at the incorrect bus stops without adult supervision. Parents were receiving little or no information about bus delays or cancellations and struggled to contact bus operators whose lines were constantly busy.

59Some parents began sharing their frustration on Twitter. Many parents tweeted about buses that were over an hour late, while others complained that buses didn’t arrive at all. Some examples of their comments:

@tdsb Day 1 school bus was 90 minutes late! Can this be more ridiculous?!

#TDSBfirstday @tdsb who organizes the buses for TDSB? 1 hr after school let out and my daughter who is in SK and 20 others still no bus

The afternoon bus didn’t come either. How can we find out if there’ll be a bus tomorrow morning?

@TCDSB first day JK! Yeah! Why was our afternoon bus 1hr late?? Kids were home @ 5pm!! I hope tm is better day! Bus didn’t show this morn

@TCDSB Your services with the school buses are sickening. My 3 kids and I have been waiting over an HOUR for pickup. STILL NO BUS!!!

60By the end of the day, the Transportation Group had also received reports of several delays and buses that never appeared. For instance, it reached out to a bus operator at 5 p.m. because several schools with 3 p.m. dismissal bells had called to say that students still had not been picked up. The Toronto District board’s communication officer even received a media inquiry about delay at one school.

Second day: Wednesday, September 7

61By the second day of school, the Transportation Group, bus operators, the two boards and individual schools were overwhelmed with inquiries and complaints about busing. A member of the Toronto District board’s communications department who had been monitoring social media emailed colleagues to say that the volume of complaints seemed “really off the charts” compared to previous years. Parents were frustrated and angry that they had received no prior notice of the service disruptions and were still being kept in the dark. Parents tweeted about long waits and no-show buses. One mother of a seven-year-old boy with autism spectrum disorder shared her frustration about waiting with her son 90 minutes for the school bus on the first day of school and 120 minutes on the second. She said her son “cried for an hour” because of this delay. Some other examples of tweets from September 7:

No bus pickup after school either, school is as confused as I am, no calls returned from bus company. Put student safety first!

So bus company says they haven’t even hired driver yet for her route. Expected us to just put [daughter] in cab with no notice. Ridiculous @tdsb

@TCDSB anybody home? Seems all these phone numbers to call and nobody answering?

Day 2 kids are stranded. No school bus! How do u expect these lil ones to have a great school experience?! #HELP #GetOurKidsToSchool

62My Office also received numerous calls from parents frustrated by the boards’ and Transportation Group’s inadequate response to the disruption.

63As the service problems began to mount, the Transportation Group and boards recognized that it was not busing as usual. One operator called the Transportation Group to advise that it would be unable to service 34 of its routes that day. After receiving complaints about no-show buses from a different operator, the Transportation Group contacted it by phone and was told that it, too, was having difficulties servicing its routes. By 9 a.m. on the second day, the Transportation Group’s General Manager told the Toronto District board in an email that this was “one of the worst years” he’d seen. Together, the Transportation Group and the boards began to work in crisis mode, discussing how to resolve the effects of the transportation disruptions – late and stranded students, angry parents and schools – while trying to deal with the underlying cause of too few drivers.

64That afternoon, the Transportation Group and both boards met by teleconference to discuss the service disruptions and to develop an action plan. Rapid communication was deemed the top priority, and after this meeting, general information referring to school bus delays was posted on the Transportation Group’s and school boards’ websites. Around 1 p.m., both boards shared information about the service disruptions on Twitter:

From Toronto DSB (@tdsb):
Important information for parents about significant bus delays and possible cancellations. [link to website]

From Toronto Catholic DSB (@tcdsb):
Driver shortages causing school bus delays at some TDSB & TCDSB schools. Latest updates online: [link to website]

65Both boards attributed the service disruptions to a serious, unanticipated driver shortage. On its website and Facebook, the Toronto District board said the public “should expect significant delays and the possibility that some buses may not be running due to an unanticipated bus driver shortage ” [emphasis added][9]. The Toronto Catholic District board relayed a similar message, indicating that it “was advised today that a serious driver shortage is impacting many of [its] schools” [emphasis added].

66Around 3:30 p.m., the boards notified schools that this information had been posted and asked them to contact parents. They also asked their schools to help identify which routes and students were affected by the service disruptions, since this information wasn’t readily available from the Transportation Group or the bus operators. Although the service contract required operators to share this information with the Transportation Group, this didn’t consistently occur.

67News media quickly picked up these communications and began reporting on the service disruption. According to one article, the boards blamed a “sudden and unexpected” driver shortage for the delays,[10] with the spokesman for the Toronto Catholic board calling the shortage a “unique and unprecedented situation”[11]. However, a spokesman for the Toronto District board was also quoted as saying the board knew of potential concerns in advance:

"Last week we started to hear about potential number problems, but no one anticipated this to be an issue, otherwise we would have told everyone[12]."

68As the crisis unfolded, school administrators and staff bore the responsibility of communicating with parents about the delays, fielding complaints, and arranging supervision and transportation for students. This burden fell primarily on principals, who were often contacted by parents who could not get through to the Transportation Group and bus operators because phone lines were busy or went straight to voicemail. Principals were quickly overwhelmed by the number of complaints they received, the need to quickly disseminate information to affected parents, and the practicalities of dealing with late and stranded students. The Toronto School Administrators’ Association summarized these concerns in an email to the Toronto District board on the afternoon of the second school day:

"There are schools where 70 or more students have not been picked up by buses. It is not feasible for [a] single admin [staff] with one office staff to contact this many families within a reasonable time frame. Also some [principals] have informed us that there are parents who cannot get to the school to pick up their children, which puts the onus on principals to find some way to get the children home. Again this is not workable (too many children and too few adults). There are also some parents who cannot be reached by phone."

Third day and beyond: Thursday, September 8…

69When the third day of school began, there still had not been a formal, written notification to parents from the boards or the Transportation Group about the disruptions. Instead, parents were left to obtain updates from social media and news reports.

70Finally, during the day on September 8, the Catholic District board’s Director of Education issued a letter to parents, advising that a significant number of students had experienced busing delays, which would be resolved in the coming weeks. In the letter, the board again blamed the disruption on the serious driver shortage and said it had only learned of the issue the previous day. It said, in part:

"Dear Parent/Guardian,
As you are aware, the Toronto Catholic District School Board was informed on September 7th of a serious shortfall in the number of school bus drivers employed by three transportation providers for the Board […] As a result, a significant number of our students across the City, including Toronto District School Board students, have experienced general delays and both pickup or drop-off interruptions in school bus transportation service this week[13]. [emphasis added]"

71The board’s letter said approximately 1,200 students were directly affected by the service disruption, and their families would receive a separate letter from their school principal with additional information and instructions. The letters from principals informed affected parents that their child’s bus route had no driver assigned and urged them to make alternative transportation arrangements “if at all possible” for a few weeks. Parents were asked to contact the principal if this was not possible to canvas alternatives. Some parents complained to our Office that the letters were insufficient and lacked necessary details. A letter was sent on September 13 to update parents about the ongoing disruptions, which again blamed the driver shortage for the ongoing disruption. However, many parents continued to complain to our Office and the board about the lack of ongoing communication.

72It was not until September 9 – the fourth day of school – that the Director of Education for the Toronto District board issued a letter to parents with information regarding the disruption. The letter explained that an unexpected, serious shortfall of drivers had led to significant service disruptions. It indicated that the board first learned of the issue on September 6:

"Dear Parent/Guardian,
On September 6, 2016, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) was unexpectedly informed of a serious shortfall in the number of school bus drivers employed by three of our transportation providers […] As a result, some students attending the city’s public and Catholic schools have experienced significant school bus delays and, in some cases, cancellations. [emphasis added]"

"It is not uncommon to experience minor and isolated transportation issues at the start of every school year, which are resolved within a short period of time. This year, the level of disruption caused by the shortage of bus drivers cannot be solved immediately. While the shortage of bus drivers is beyond the school board’s control, we sincerely apologize for this inconvenience and thank you for your continued patience[14]."

73The board indicated that 1,275 students from 50 public schools were directly affected by the disruption and would receive a separate letter from their school. In those letters, parents were assured that students would be supervised from 7:30 a.m. until the last bus departed in the afternoon. The board sent another letter to affected students a week later to provide further updates. In his interview with our Office, the board’s Director of Education said he felt the board had done everything in its power to keep parents informed. However, parents complained to the board and our Office that these communications failed to provide clear, concrete information about the transportation disruptions.

The Transportation Group’s Request for Proposal

75The Toronto Student Transportation Group was required to engage in its first competitive procurement process under the new broader public sector procurement directive in 2016 because its 2007 agreements were expiring.

76The Transportation Group issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) in November 2015. The request was more comprehensive than the 2007 contracts and contained many new or modified provisions regarding service requirements.

77More than 1,700 routes were up for grabs under the RFP. Bus operators bid on “bundles” of 30 routes. Operators were not given information about the location of specific routes and were not able to limit their bid to a specific geographic area.

Driver recruitment and route planning

89In February 2016, after bus operators learned how many routes they had been awarded, some asked for route location details so they could start recruiting drivers.

90Operators typically hold a series of open houses to recruit bus drivers for the coming school year. As part of these open houses, operators share the routes they have been assigned, and interested drivers sign up, indicating which route they would like to drive. Routes are inextricably connected to the recruitment of drivers – drivers often choose their employer based on the route they want to drive. Accordingly, it is important for operators to know which routes they are responsible for, so they can recruit drivers effectively.

Last-minute route changes

94On June 2, 2016, after the Transportation Group had planned bus routes and operators had recruited drivers for those routes, the board of trustees for the Toronto Catholic District School Board voted to stop busing students who did not meet its transportation policy’s eligibility criteria (e.g. they lived too close to school). Because the board had a widespread practice of transporting ineligible students, this decision affected more than 7,000 students and stood to save the board some $2.85 million per year.

95The Transportation Group was notified of this decision and staff began the process of removing thousands of ineligible riders and adjusting hundreds of affected routes. The changes, which primarily affected big-bus routes, necessitated a complete re-planning and optimization of all routes. We were told this process is painstaking and time-consuming. Moreover, it needs to be completed three times whenever changes are made – once for each board, and once for all routes. This process sets the baseline for the boards’ cost-sharing methodology.

96However, the trustees’ decision proved to be incredibly unpopular, and in a unanimous vote on June 27, 2016, the board reversed its position. This about-face meant the transportation planning staff had to add all of the removed students back to the computer system and generate new routes, which again had to be optimized three times. The Transportation Group’s General Manager told our Office that this process took over a month, and delayed the finalization and publication of big bus routes until August. Typically, the Transportation Group aims to have routes substantially completed before school lets out in June, so information can be sent home with students’ final report cards.

97This change of heart also resulted in pressure from the Toronto District board on the Transportation Group to cut transportation costs in other ways. Planning staff looked for efficiencies in existing routes, primarily by shortening the break between routes serviced by the same bus. This meant that if a bus were delayed for any reason, the delay might snowball and affect many other students. All of these changes, optimizations, and re-optimizations affected the validity of the mock routes that were issued in March and April 2016 to guide driver recruitment.

Bus operator meeting in August 2016

98With the start of school only a few weeks away, the Transportation Group scheduled a meeting for August 18, 2016, for bus operators to receive their finalized routes. Operators were asked to bring a dispatcher knowledgeable about Toronto geography so they could swap routes if they did not have operational capacity or drivers to service particular routes.

99At the meeting, operators were given hard copies of their routes. We were told that as soon as some operators looked at the routes, it became clear they were different from the mock routes issued in March and April 2016. One operator who had transported students in Toronto for decades told us: “None of the mock routes even remotely showed up in our [final] routes. Everything was just a wholesale change.” That operator immediately recognized the problem this would cause for driver retention and spoke with the Transportation Group’s General Manager. Other operators raised similar concerns, and two days later, the General Manager sent an email to all bus operators to address the complaints and remind them that the mock routes had never been intended to reflect final routes. Operators were again encouraged to trade routes among themselves. One operator responded to this email expressing skepticism that trading routes would resolve its issues, because entire schools it had expected to service had been assigned to a different operator. In his interview with our Office, the General Manager admitted that the discrepancy between the mock and final routes “…may have led to some issues with drivers.”

100In the days that followed, the Transportation Group continued to make changes to the “final” routes that operators were given at the August meeting. These changes were largely to accommodate the hundreds of last-minute transportation requests that are traditionally received in the lead up to the first day of school. However, bus operators said things were different in 2016. The changes were more dramatic and required drivers to pick up students in areas they had not agreed to initially. Some routes became very long, requiring drivers to criss-cross the city each morning and afternoon. Given the propensity of drivers to walk away from routes they were dissatisfied with, the operator was concerned these changes would exacerbate the emerging driver shortage.

The Wheels Fall Off The Bus

What the boards knew

106Aware that driver shortages at several operators would lead to service disruptions at the start of the school year, the Transportation Group’s Operations Manager drafted an update for the Toronto District board, indicating that:

"…we have been informed by several carriers that there will be driver shortages for the first week of school. We are working closely with those carriers to try and minimize the extent of the problem but we need to be aware that service could be significantly impacted. [emphasis added]"

107On August 31, 2016 – about a week before school started –this warning language was shared with the Toronto District board. A substantially softened version of the notice appeared in the Toronto District board’s internal staff bulletin on September 6, 2016, the first day of school:

"In the first year of the [transportation] contract we will ordinarily experience some growing pains that may manifest as service issues. For one, many of the carriers are starting new routes and some have informed us they may have driver shortages for the first week of school…please be aware that service could be impacted and we are here to support in any way we can…[emphasis added]"

108On September 1, 2016 – the Thursday before the Labour Day long weekend and the start of the school year on Tuesday – the Transportation Group’s General Manager emailed transportation officials at each board to advise that some bus operators were “severely short drivers.” He said the Transportation Group was working to minimize the gap between routes and drivers, but that “significant service delivery issues” should be expected. While the General Manager had previously told the boards about the driver shortage, this was the first time that he indicated it would be severe.

109The Toronto District board did not issue any public communication in response to this warning.

110At the Toronto Catholic District board, its Associate Director emailed a senior colleague about the potential service disruption: “You need to let everyone know!” The Toronto Catholic District board’s Director of Education asked her staff to work with a communications officer to prepare a statement. However, no communication to parents or staff occurred.

111In late September 2016, in response to our Office’s pending investigation, the Associate Director emailed the Transportation Group’s General Manager about the implications of an Ombudsman investigation. The email said, in part:

"…when I responded to [the General Manager’s] email on September 1st […] and I asked [staff] to let everyone know about the potential disruption from the lack of drivers, and the Director asked that a communication be prepared to go out to the schools…why didn’t something go out on the Friday? Why did we wait until the 2nd day of school, as did TDSB? Did you tell [board staff] that based on past experience it was covered? This is our only vulnerability?"

112According to the information provided to our Office, the Transportation Group’s General Manager did not respond to this email.

113No public communication about the anticipated driver shortage and service disruptions was issued by the Transportation Group or either board before school began. According to emails we reviewed, the General Manager was reluctant to refer to a driver shortage and suggested that call centre staff say they were working with operators to “address operational concerns.”

114Both boards publicly stated that they did not learn about the driver shortage or the possibility of service disruptions until the school year started. In interviews with our Office and in its letters to parents, the Catholic District board said the Transportation Group told it about the problem on Wednesday, September 7, 2016, while the Toronto District board said it was told on Tuesday, September 6. However, our investigation clearly indicates that both boards were aware of driver shortages and significant service disruptions a week before school began and took almost no action on that information.

115When asked about this, the Catholic District board’s Associate Director told our investigators there had been a gap in communication and the board should have alerted parents and other stakeholders when it received information from the Transportation Group in the days before school began. The Toronto District board’s Director of Education took a different position, saying that the information he had been provided before school began wasn’t concerning enough to justify issuing an alert.

116In the first acknowledgement of responsibility that our Office saw or heard, the Transportation Group’s General Manager told our investigators he did not fully recognize the scope of the impending disaster. He explained that he was not overly concerned with the number of open routes because there were always open routes at the start of the school year. His error, he said, was not taking into account that the routes were concentrated among three operators. The concentration of routes with so few operators made it almost impossible to arrange temporary coverage. However, this explanation is at odds with emails we reviewed, which revealed that the General Manager and his staff were fully aware and concerned that specific operators had high concentrations of open routes – notably the email he sent on August 30, 2016, which described the situation with one operator as “dire.”

Bus operators’ communication

123Bus operators failed to communicate timely and accurate information to parents and the Transportation Group as the crisis unfolded.

Toronto Student Transportation Group’s call centre

133The Toronto Student Transportation Group operates a call centre, staffed by about 10 contract employees, at the start of each school year – usually from the last week of August until the end of September. In 2016, it was open until mid-October, due to the ongoing transportation disruptions. The call centre responds to questions and complaints from parents and school administrators as everyone becomes accustomed to the bus schedule and routes.

134In the first month of the 2016-2017 school year, the centre was deluged by more than 4,000 calls. The centre and Transportation Group staff received more than 7,500 calls between September and December 2016. Many parents complained to our Office that they were unable to get through to the call centre in September because the lines were constantly busy. According to is statistics, the call centre was only able to answer 54% of calls it received that month. Transportation Group staff told us they couldn’t hire additional staff to address the call volume during the transportation disruptions due to office space limitations.

135The Transportation Group is aware call centre staffing was an issue during the crisis. The draft of the September 2016 report prepared for the Toronto District board recommended this be considered in future:

"During September [2016] significant communication challenges…occurred. Due to the large volume of disruption in the system the call volume was much higher than expected…In planning for next year, it is imperative that the level of staffing centrally and at all carriers be considered to ensure timely and accurate information is shared."

136In their May 2017 report, Toronto District board staff said the call centre would have additional staffing in the 2017-2018 school year during peak complaint periods. The Transportation Group should ensure its call centre is adequately staffed and resourced to handle the volume of complaints and enquiries received each year. The centre’s infrastructure and staff complement should be adaptable to unpredictable and changing complaint volumes.

137The Transportation Group should also develop call centre policies and procedures that establish minimum service standards for wait and response times. It should also conduct ongoing trends analyses of complaints and inquiries received, in order to address operator service performance issues and identify opportunities for improvements.

Muddled complaint process

138Our investigation found that during the crisis, many parents and other stakeholders weren’t sure where they should address their transportation complaints. Even if they did know who they should contact, their inability to get through to their child’s school, the Toronto Student Transportation Group or bus operators forced them to complain to other organizations. As a result, school principals, board officials, bus operators, and Transportation Group staff all received complaints, but had no centralized system to track issues, resolutions, or follow-up. Accordingly, meaningful complaint statistics and trends about the crisis don’t exist.

139According to our interviews, the Transportation Group and boards do not have a procedure to provide parents with information proactively about how to obtain bus service information or complain about issues. They should ensure parents know how to access bus service information and complaint procedures prior to the start of each school year. At present, the Transportation Group’s website includes electronic pamphlets that, despite some outdated content, provide much of this information and could serve as a model for future communication with parents[17].

140To ensure complaints are dealt with expeditiously and tracked consistently, the Transportation Group, school boards, and bus operators should jointly devise a school bus transportation complaint procedure. This procedure should include a mechanism for recording and responding to complaints, as well as for escalating serious or unresolved complaints. It should also distinguish between requests for information about bus schedules and routes, and complaints about bus service. Parents and other stakeholders should be provided with information about how to access this policy each year.

Responding to student safety concerns

141The Transportation Group’s call centre uses a priority system (high, medium, low) to categorize the urgency of incoming calls. Our Office was not provided with any policy that governs this determination, although during interviews we were told that “anything that has to do with the safety of the children” is given high priority. The call centre has a Safety Officer who investigates safety concerns brought to the Transportation Group’s attention and, when incidents occur, ensures that the proper protocols were followed by the bus operator and an incident report documents the safety issue. We were told that the Safety Officer tracks incident reports to determine if drivers or bus operators have multiple safety incidents, in which case the officer can ask the operator to retrain the driver to help ensure safety protocols are followed in future. These steps are not documented in any Transportation Group policy or procedure. Regarding student safety, the manual only contains a general “missing student” protocol that outlines the steps that must be taken to find a student who is reported missing, as well as the reporting requirements for such incidents.

142Given the importance of ensuring student safety, the Transportation Group should ensure that its process for identifying and responding to safety incidents is documented in its policies and procedures. Specific steps for evaluating the adequacy of the bus operator’s investigation, incident report, and response should be established, as well as a procedure for following up with and taking remedial steps against operators when these are found to be inadequate.

143The service contracts between bus operators and the boards require that all drivers be trained in school bus safety programs. The agreement sets out the minimum time that drivers must spend in training on various subjects and how frequently they must take refresher courses. Bus operators must provide the boards with the dates and agendas for this training, and board staff have the option to attend the sessions. The service contracts also allow the boards to appoint an independent organization to perform a driver safety audit.

144According to the service contract, one vital aspect of the training – the “Purple Equals Parent” program requirements – lasts 30 minutes and only needs to be provided to new drivers. New drivers must also receive four hours of training on “awareness of sensitivity” for special needs students and accessibility requirements, including the requirement to provide door-to-door transportation for students with special needs.

145Given the severe impact that mistakes can have on student safety, the Toronto Student Transportation Group should ensure future service contracts with bus operators provide drivers with initial and ongoing annual training about each program’s procedures and importance. In cases of repeated or egregious errors, the Transportation Group should carefully consider enforcing the contractual penalties ($2,000 per occurrence) against operators that fail to adhere to the Purple Equals Parent program requirements. The Transportation Group should also consider adding provisions to future service contracts allowing it to penalize operators that contravene the transportation policy for students with special needs, such as the requirement for door-to-door transportation.

Taxi Program

148During the busing crisis, taxis were sometimes hired to fill the gap left by the bus driver shortage. Some bus operators arranged and paid for taxi companies to provide coverage for routes without drivers, especially those servicing students with special needs. The Catholic District board also instituted a taxi voucher program. It distributed approximately 15,000 vouchers to schools to use as a last-resort method of transporting students, although at the time of our interviews, the board did not know how many were ultimately used. In addition, the Toronto Student Transportation Group arranged and paid for taxis for some stranded students requiring immediate assistance.

149In each case, parents needed to approve taxi transportation for their child, and taxis were generally not used for students under nine years of age. Bus operators were also required to notify the student’s school when they subcontracted a bus route to taxi drivers. We heard that some parents were uncomfortable having their children transported by a different, unknown taxi driver each time. Others were concerned that taxi drivers lacked the training and knowledge to transport students, especially those with special needs. The Transportation Group told us it relied on bus operators to communicate safety instructions and protocols to taxi companies, and that it had no mechanism to oversee taxi driver compliance. The expectation is that bus operators will only subcontract routes to taxi companies that are listed as vendors of record with the Toronto boards.

150This lack of oversight is troubling, and our investigation found several instances where student welfare was compromised because taxi drivers failed to follow basic safety measures. One vice-principal reported that a vulnerable student had been left by a taxi driver with a passing adult near the school. In explaining the situation to board staff, the vice-principal wrote:

"The taxi pulled over to the side of the street, rolled down the window and asked an adult passing by if they were a teacher at the school and if they could take the student inside. The passerby, who happened to be a teacher, took the student into the school. The student wasn’t able to speak his name or indicate where he was supposed to go. The driver left the student with the adult and didn’t confirm that the adult was a teacher…[T]his could have been a serious situation."

151Our Office also received a complaint from the mother of a 15-year-old student with physical and intellectual disabilities who was supposed to always be dropped off with a responsible adult. Instead, a taxi driver dropped her off at the back of the school without staff supervision. The bus operator’s investigation confirmed that the taxi driver’s behaviour was not in accordance with policy and procedure, and the driver was removed from the route.

152There were also issues with late and no-show taxis. We heard of one school where taxis consistently arrived 60 to 90 minutes after the end of classes, requiring three staff members to supervise a group of stranded students.

153The service contracts between the boards and the operators require that operators obtain the board’s permission before subcontracting any work, including to taxis. Subcontractors must abide by all terms of the service contract, and operators are responsible if their subcontractor fails to do so. However, there are limited mechanisms that would allow the Transportation Group to verify whether taxi subcontractors are in compliance with the service contract.

154If the Toronto Student Transportation Group and the Toronto boards are going to grant bus operators permission to subcontract routes to taxi drivers, they need to ensure taxi drivers are aware of and comply with basic safety instructions and protocols contained in the service contract. The Toronto Student Transportation Group should ensure that bus operators who subcontract work to taxi companies comply with the service contract’s requirements, including that they provide instruction and training to taxi drivers before they begin picking up students. When deciding whether to approve an operator’s request to subcontract work to a taxi, the Transportation Group should ensure the taxi is being used as a last resort and that the same taxi driver will service the route whenever possible.

Route modifications

155In addition to facilitating route trading and redistribution, the Toronto Student Transportation Group modified some open routes (those without drivers), primarily by scheduling buses to take on multiple additional routes. Bus operators, on their own initiative and without notifying the Transportation Group, modified routes in the same way. Doubling up routes in this manner ensured students were transported to and from school, although often at inconvenient times. However, the modified routes created a new set of problems, with students arriving at school very early in the morning and leaving late in the afternoon. The emails our investigators reviewed suggest the Transportation Group and the boards did not check with schools before making these changes to ensure students were supervised before and after school. One principal at an affected Catholic District school wrote on September 12 to express her concerns to senior board and Transportation Group management:

"I am beside myself right now! I reviewed the pickup time for the students on [a specific route.] Pickup time starting at 7 a.m. There are many issues with this…Who is to meet the students when they get [to school] before 8 a.m.? Our educational assistant? The teachers? All are unionized. Me? I will do this, but what happens on the days I cannot make it in before the students arrive? I realize that this is temporary – how long?"

156In other instances, students were scheduled to arrive substantially after classes began each day. One principal complained to board officials that the first of nine stops on a bus route was scheduled for 8:27 a.m., even though school started at 8:30 a.m. Another principal complained that parents were given little notice of modified pickup and drop-off times that were to go into effect the following day. For many parents, these changes were difficult to accommodate, given their work schedules and other commitments. Similarly, school administrators were left to ensure staff were available to supervise and meet students at new and unexpected times. In the future, the Toronto Student Transportation Group, the Toronto District and Toronto Catholic District school boards should ensure affected schools and parents are provided adequate and reasonable notice before they modify students’ pickup or drop-off times.

Increased hours of student supervision

157By the second day of transportation disruptions, the Toronto District board had determined that extended hours of supervision were required for affected students. In the days that followed, schools were instructed to arrange this, and principals were responsible for finding qualified employees willing to work the hours on short notice.

158The Catholic District board also informed principals that they might need to make arrangements for student supervision before and after school. According to emails we reviewed, it took longer for that board to implement this directive, due to a smaller pool of staff resources.

159Although the transportation disruptions in 2016 were worse than usual, we repeatedly heard that they are a common feature of the back-to-school process. Each school board should proactively develop and implement contingency staffing plans to ensure adequate student supervision if and when transportation disruptions occur. The plans should include clear protocols regarding emergency staff assignments to supervise students stranded as a result of service disruptions.

Driver recruitment and additional bus operators

160Bus operators continued to aggressively recruit drivers in September 2016, but this was offset by ongoing driver attrition. Some drivers quit entirely; others were hired by competing operators. In an email to operators a week into the crisis, the Toronto Student Transportation Group’s General Manager asked them to stop hiring drivers away from other carriers until the service disruptions were resolved.

161The Transportation Group also spoke with charter bus operators on its approved vendor list to see if they could service any of the open routes. These operators declined the work after being shown the available routes. The Transportation Group also unsuccessfully approached companies it had worked with in the past, other operators who had expressed interest in doing so, and the one operator whose bid on the 2016 RFP was not successful. However, the Toronto District board’s permanent fleet of 13 buses and staff drivers agreed to provide coverage to open routes.

Reviews and post mortems

163In an email from the second week of September, the Transportation Group’s General Manager laid out different transportation strategies and addressed what could be done to avoid disruptions in future. His email noted that it was “tough to say absolutely” how to prevent the problem from recurring, but said most bus operators and drivers would continue to service the same routes the following year, minimizing the possibility of driver shortages. He also said new software might allow the Transportation Group to complete its planning for special education bus routes sooner, allowing drivers to commit to specific routes earlier in the summer.

164The Transportation Group met with bus operators in December 2016 to better understand the factors that led to the driver shortage. According to the meeting’s minutes, participants identified three key factors: Operators were given routes in unexpected geographic areas, routes were frequently changed, and bus drivers were leaving the profession in general. Four strategies were identified to ensure better service in the next school year: Distributing routes earlier, improving communication, imposing a blackout period on changes at the start of the school year, and hosting a workshop for operators.

165The May 2017 report to the Toronto District board identified several factors that led to the transportation disruption, including a provincewide driver shortage, a new service contract with operators that required them to work in new areas, and a delay in assigning routes to operators.

166The report set out the steps taken by the Toronto District board, the Transportation Group, and bus operators to prepare for the 2017-18 school year, including:

• Ongoing meetings with bus operators to discuss concerns, plan for the coming year, and collaborate on improving the transportation system as a whole;

• Obtaining information about which students require transportation sooner, allowing the Transportation Group to distribute routes to bus operators one month earlier than under the previous process;

• Requiring weekly updates from operators during the summer about driver coverage for each route;

• Enhanced call centre staffing during the start of the school year;

• The creation of a transportation portal which will allow parents to receive bus delay updates from operators directly;

• Ensuring that all buses are equipped with GPS to allow operators to track their location in real-time. The Transportation Group is also working on an initiative to provide real-time information about the location and status of individual buses through a “where’s my bus” application;

• Connecting principals from schools that specifically serve students with special needs with bus operators to provide training, advice and insight on their schools’ issues with transportation; and

• Reviewing and updating the Toronto District board’s transportation policy.

167The report also indicated that the Transportation Group was in the process of obtaining new route planning software, which it expected to increase efficiency and automation. As well, it noted efforts were being made to improve the Transportation Group’s governance structure through increased harmonization between the Toronto boards.

168An advisory group has been formed to assist in identifying systemic busing issues. This group consists of superintendents, school principals, bus operators, transportation staff, and members with special education expertise. Given the importance of improving communication and consultation on transportation matters, the Transportation Group should ensure that terms of reference are drafted to guide the group’s work and that minutes of its meetings are posted to the Transportation Group’s website.

169No one we spoke to could provide a full estimate of the total additional expenses associated with the disruption, although the Toronto District board estimates the cost of additional student supervision alone at approximately $50,000. After receiving legal advice about these provisions, the Transportation Group’s General Manager warned operators in the second week of September about the possibility that penalties and cost recovery might be imposed under service contracts. The Transportation Group told us the boards issued $264,077 in penalties against bus operators.

Route Planning and Allocation

170Several decisions by the boards resulted in bus routes – especially big-bus routes – not being finalized until August, substantially after they are usually completed. The biggest of these was the Catholic District board’s request to remove (and then re-add) non-qualifying students to its routes. The Toronto District board also directed the Transportation Group to optimize bus routes in an attempt to reduce transportation costs. In the meantime, bus operators recruited drivers based on mock routes that ended up bearing little relationship to the routes they were ultimately assigned. Drivers, who are notoriously picky about the routes they drive, sometimes refused to take the new routes, resulting in confusion and driver shortages that were worse than expected. As well, some of the routes crafted by the Transportation Group were simply impossible to complete in the time allotted, resulting in further disruption and driver attrition.

171To facilitate the timely planning of bus routes, each school board should provide student transportation information to the Transportation Group as early as possible to facilitate an earlier start to the route planning process. To minimize the possibility of transportation disruptions, decisions affecting student transportation should only be made after consulting Transportation Group management regarding the likely impact of the decision. Similarly, requests for route optimizations outside the typical route planning process should be considered and approved by the Transportation Group’s governance committee. In turn, that committee should consult with Transportation Group management and both school boards about the impact of the request on route planning, driver retention, and transportation efficiency before making a decision.

172The Transportation Group should also ensure that any mock routes issued to assist operators in early driver recruitment reflect the areas and schools where operators will be assigned routes. To ensure planned routes can be realistically completed in the time allotted, dry runs should be completed under realistic conditions for all routes to confirm they can be completed on schedule (e.g., the bus should stay at each stop long enough to allow students to load/unload, the route should be driven at the scheduled times).

173In addition, the Transportation Group and the boards should take steps to minimize route changes at the beginning of each school year. The draft of the September 2016 report for the Toronto District board recommended “that a moratorium on route changes be imposed until the end of September to allow time to ensure minimal disruptions throughout the start-up phase.”An official at this board told us a full moratorium might not be realistic, but acknowledged the importance of completing the route planning process as early as possible.

174Even if a full moratorium is not realistic, the Transportation Group can and should develop a policy for student transportation requests that sets out a process and firm deadline. We understand that for the 2017-2018 school year, the Transportation Group set an earlier deadline for submitting student transportation requests, which allowed it to distribute routes to bus operators a month sooner than under the previous process. This new practice should be codified in the Transportation Group’s policy. The policy should also establish clear responsibilities for the Transportation Group, boards and parents, as well as provide for exceptional or compassionate circumstances in which late transportation requests will nonetheless be accommodated.

175In the lead-up to the first day of school, the Transportation Group required bus operators to deal with routes they could not realistically service because they had no drivers willing to take them. Operators were told repeatedly to trade routes amongst themselves to resolve these issues. However, as it became clear that some were facing a significant driver shortage, the Transportation Group moved away from the route-swapping approach. In the week before the start of school, and more intensely thereafter, it worked with operators to facilitate route trades to ensure that as many routes as possible were serviced. The Transportation Group told us it facilitated at least 40 trades amongst operators to reduce the number of open routes.

176Given the success of this approach, the Transportation Group should consistently take an active role in matching open routes with interested drivers. The Transportation Group, unlike individual operators, can collect and centralize this information, increasing the efficiency of the matching process. It should ensure bus operators are contractually obligated to provide information on open routes to facilitate the matching process for routes that would otherwise not have an assigned driver.

Structural flaws

177Another systemic issue that likely contributed to the unco-ordinated and inadequate response by board and Transportation Group officials as the busing crisis unfolded arises from the Toronto Student Transportation Group’s organizational structure.

178Although the Transportation Group represents the interests of the two school boards that created it, we found that its bifurcated nature negatively affects transportation planning and administration. Three staff members provide services exclusively to the Transportation Group: A General Manager, Operations Manager, and Planning & Technology Manager. Each school board covers 50% of the costs associated with these positions. The General Manager and Planning & Technology Manager are seconded from the Toronto Catholic District board, while the Operations Manager is from the Toronto District board.

179Transportation Group planners are responsible for designing bus routes. They are from the transportation departments of each board. They remain employees of their respective boards, and their salaries and other employment matters continue to be dealt with by the board that hired them.

180Each board has its own transportation policy, and staff at the Transportation Group generally work in silos to administer them. Toronto District board employees working for the Transportation Group report ultimately to the Operations Manager (who is seconded from that board), while Catholic District board employees report to the Planning & Technology Manager (who is seconded from the Catholic board). Each manager is responsible for dealing with the operations management related to “their” board, including interacting with school principals and superintendents on student transportation issues.

181Transportation Group staff told us this separation of operational and administrative functions has an adverse impact on employee morale, as well as on the group’s efficiency and functioning. For instance, there are differences in pay scales between the two boards, which means staff members performing the same job earn different salaries. We were told that even though Transportation Group staff share the same physical space, they have different telephone and computer systems, complicating communication.

182More generally, we found there is a sense of mistrust within and between the Transportation Group and the school boards. We reviewed emails in which senior staff from both boards, including Directors of Education, expressed concerns about the General Manager’s perceived preferential treatment of students and transportation issues at the other board. On occasion, staff of both boards expressed suspicion that Transportation Group staff were “fixing” financial numbers and reports to make their board pay a larger proportion of the transportation costs. The General Manager was well aware of these concerns, telling our investigators: “It’s funny – both boards think I’m playing for the other board.”

183While the Transportation Group is nominally separate from the school boards, in practice staff members are loyal to their home boards and fail to work together as a unit for the combined benefit of both. This attitude is recognized by the boards, which have established differing reporting and pay structures, as well as separate computer and communication systems. To improve student transportation planning, the Transportation Group and boards should work together to remove barriers that prevent Transportation Group staff from working as a cohesive team. Management must work to foster a culture of co-operation and consultation amongst staff and ensure they all have access to the same resources and technology. While staff may continue to be administratively employed by one school board, this should have no bearing on their employment responsibilities. The Transportation Group should ensure that these changes are reflected in its policies and procedures.

184The May 2017 report to the Toronto District board said efforts were underway to improve the governance structure of the Transportation Group through “increased harmonization” between the boards. This is an important initiative, as a more cohesive, co-operative, and co-ordinated workplace culture could lead to better planning and communication in future.