American School Districts: "Drivers Wanted.... Badly"

America is a big and beautiful country with resources coming from geographically dispersed regions. From the shores of NY, to the Great Lakes of Ohio, to the Windy City in Illinois, to the Red Clay and oil fields of Oklahoma and Texas to the amazing agriculture up and down the western plains and west coast, America is plentiful. All of these amazing resources lead to a complex and vast logistics program that relies heavily on our drivers, specifically drivers with CDL’s (Commercial Drivers Licenses). This specialized pool of drivers is the target demographic for America's school bus drivers as well as the chemical, food, product and retailer industries. The schools need to be ready to compete for this specialized driver, against the most successful free market entities in the world, like Amazon.

The Covid-19 Virus has caused the economy in America to shift. A lot of social distancing, working from home, and chaos in distribution centers and grocery stores is now common place. With schools shutting down, potentially into summer months, bus drivers with CDL’s are looking for other ways to earn a living for the next 5-6 months. Companies like Costco, Walmart, Amazon and many others have an immediate need for drivers, and have the ability to pay them very well. The big question is, will they come back to your district when they are needed more than ever at the start of the next school year?

"Transit Topics" Article

https://www.ttnews.com/articles/trucking-companies-increase-hiring-bolster-supply-chain

At the beginning of the 2019 school year schools were seeing yet another reduction in available bus drivers. The bus driver shortage was already reaching epidemic levels, but the shortfall clearly shows that this troubling trend is continuing to get worse. Districts like Mesa, in Arizona, were 50 bus drivers short going into the 2019-2020 school year and have been struggling to find a way to fulfill their own needs all year long. Over 20% of Districts nationwide are in urgent need of bus drivers. What will this cause when considering demand growing in competitive markets, while the supply of jobs in school districts approaches ZERO?

There are many intelligent and hard working men and women in these fields and I am sure we will see many creative solutions in the near future to solve this growing problem. I am working with some of them, and we are trying hard to keep our focus on another problem. That problem is focused on a less common population of student.

If a child lives outside of the bus routes, or participates in Federal Programs like McKinney-Vento, ESSA, SPED, or any School of Origin situation, they need unconventional transportation. With this freeze on our economy, how will these kids be impacted? The local companies that provide this work traditionally own a fixed fleet of vehicles, pay drivers (often time as salaried staff), pay gas costs, insurance costs, vehicle costs, not to mention their own garages, mechanics, and back-office personnel.

These companies already service student populations as an ancillary program. Focusing on medical contracts and other government work that keeps drivers busy throughout the day. With a freeze on these companies, who already are suffocating on costs compared to their competitors like Uber and Lyft, will they even be around or open to devoting large investment of resources to work in this field?

Uber and Lyft have no interest in serving any populations that require extra credentialing or additional insurance costs, and schools are struggling to hire enough school bus drivers, let alone manage a high turnover and additional cost structure of their own new van fleets and drivers. That is why we want to keep our focus on this population of children who may qualify for these programs due to special needs, being homeless, living with grandma, or in foster care. We never want them to feel left out, or like a forgotten priority when things get tough.

Our Solutions:

The great thing about TRUST-ED Rides is that we give you the technology to immediately respond to your own needs. With our strategic partners we can find access to dozens, if not many more, drivers in your district immediately. Quickly align geographically intelligent routes to maximize your budget, and in many cases return 40% of the cost of your trip back to your own participating staff members. The entire time, we carry the risk insurance and liability of each trip.

Why not partner with a company that offers free technology to manage any transportation crisis you could run into? Especially when that same free software acts a HR partner by collecting and capturing the state requirement for background checks, drug screens, and driver and vehicle standards. Internal and external audits of driver credentials become as easy as pushing a few buttons and children are guaranteed the safest drivers available.

We have thought through this scenario and many others after meeting with dozens of school districts across the country. Our technology is built to serve children outside of bus routes, act as a disaster recovery tool when drivers call out or quit, and giving you access to the safest possible driver pool and costs nothing to have access to. I am personally available to discuss strategy with anyone and everyone that will run into this problem in the upcoming months. Please do not let this problem sneak up on you!!! I wish you all the best of luck and health in the meantime.

Cheers,

BJ

3/25/2020