The number of BPS bus drivers is declining as costs rise

The decline in passenger numbers largely reflects a a decline in the number of students that has lasted more than ten years in Boston Public Schools and offers new insight into the financial pressures it creates. With fewer students attending the district’s 119 schools, more bus seats are left empty as BPS must maintain routes to get students to schools with lower enrollment.

Superintendent Mary Skipper was scheduled to make an announcement far-reaching plan in the spring to consolidate schoolswhich could have limited bus routes, But I scaled it back considerably.

The Globe findings make clear that BPS cannot continue to delay decisions on school closures, said Marty Walz, interim president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau.

“Rising transportation costs while enrollment has declined underscores the savings BPS could realize if its schools are consolidated and the money that could be spent on children’s education,” she said.

BPS is under pressure from some city councilors and watchdogs to curb spending as Mayor Michelle Wu grapples with a steep decline in commercial tax revenues. Wu is seeking approval from Beacon Hill to shift more of the tax burden to commercial properties in an effort to avoid sharp increases in homeowners’ tax bills.

The school buses have long been a source of frustration and a sign of potential bloat: BPS runs one of the most expensive bus systems in the country and one of the least reliable, according to a Globe review of several public reports, and there are calls from some city leaders to cut the district’s transportation spending.

“We should do a better job,” said City Council Member Erin Murphy. “No one in the BPS leadership is taking this seriously and they would rather we not talk about it anymore.”

Councilwoman Julia Mejia said the City Council should hold a public hearing to dig deeper into ridership numbers and growing transportation costs, but she added, “We need to be thoughtful and careful about how we approach this issue.”

Of particular importance, she says, is taking measures that could have a negative impact on BPS’s ability to repair its late buses, especially since this put BPS at risk of a state takeover two years ago.

Tensions about late buses are also rising again this fall, after BPS and its transportation contractor Transdev deployed a new bus tracking app that was supposed to increase the reliability and timeliness of its bus fleet but was instead hampered by long delays and service disruptions, especially during midday deliveries.

The move came as BPS entered the third and final year of a state-mandated district improvement plan, which required BPS to have 95 percent or more of its buses arrive on time each month, a benchmark it has yet to meet.

Since the start of this school year, arrival times have fallen below 90 percent for almost all mornings and below 80 percent on most afternoons, although the numbers are improving.

According to BPS, several factors are driving up expenses while ridership is declining, including rising costs for fuel, auto liability insurance, new buses and parts, bus lot leases and contractually agreed-upon pay increases for drivers, attendants and other union positions.

Another big reason is the changing demographics of who rides the buses. experienced BPD an increase in homeless students who often travel long distances to their school. The number of students with disabilities requiring home pick-up and drop-off has also increased from 2,400 a decade ago to 6,500 this year.

“The increase in door-to-door service means the number of bus stops has not been reduced,” Dan Rosengard, executive director of BPS Transportation, said in a statement. “Door-to-door stops also typically need to be on smaller buses that can navigate smaller streets. This translates into maintaining the same fleet size and total number of drivers, even with fewer students driving.”

Providing transportation services to students with disabilities comes with other costs: The number of students requiring bus monitors has more than tripled to 2,800 since the 2014-2015 school year, doubling the workforce in size. Many students with disabilities are also transported to private programs, including some outside the city.

But the increase in spending and overall decline in ridership does not appear to be improving service, according to many parents, who blame BPS for not doing enough to fix the late buses.

“They have all this money, but where does it go,” said Christina Ingram, whose fourth-grade son with autism is supposed to be picked up door-to-door, but the bus is often late or doesn’t show. “The only ones being punished are the children.”

Her son regularly misses nearly an hour of morning classes at the Henderson Inclusion School in Dorchester because his bus is late picking him up. And no-show buses in the afternoon have her panicking.

Earlier this month, Ingram had to call 911 to report her son missing after the transportation department incorrectly told her he had been dropped off in Roxbury — nowhere near their Dorchester apartment. It turned out he was still at school because the bus never picked him up. No-show buses have persisted since then, she said, due to a shortage of monitors, even though BPS said this summer that they would be fully staffed.

The Globe Review examined transportation data from the time Transdev won its first contract to manage BPS’s bus fleet, which began in the 2013-2014 school year and was supposed to mark a turning point for a bus company that has long struggled with service delays .

At that time, BPS served more than 31,600 students. Ridership began to decline a year later, when the district stopped transporting most seventh- and eighth-grade students and instead gave them MBTA passes — a move that reduced total transportation spending that year by a few million dollar pushed down.

Initially, BPS was able to keep the pace of transportation budget increases slow as ridership continued to decline, but eventually the cost increases became greater and now annual expenditures are approximately $60 million more than the first year of Transdev’s contract.

Greg Maynard, executive director of the Boston Policy Institute, a nonprofit research center, said it will be difficult for BPS and the mayor to address late buses and limit transportation spending until they devise and implement a plan to consolidate schools . are too closely intertwined.

“We have a system that is designed for many more children than are in it, and so costs will continue to rise even as enrollment continues to decline,” he said. “We have seen a real lack of urgency from this administration to tackle the biggest, most systemic problems in the BPS.”

James Vaznis can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @globevaznis.