Bus report: New transportation director put safety as top priority
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on August 24, 2014 1:50 AM
After three years of declining bus maintenance state inspection scores, Wayne County Public Schools officials decided to make a change, thinking a new leader might bring a new focus on the problem and, perhaps, a solution.
New transportation director Robert Lee III will be the one setting that direction.
Lee replaced former transportation director, Raymond Smith, who was terminated May 15. Lee's first official day was July 8.
Lee, a former Air Force first sergeant, is not new to school transportation. He has trained bus drivers in this region for eight years.
That, along with his military experience and understanding of how engines work, he said, will be what he needs to get the job done in Wayne County.
"I grew up working on cars with my dad, so I speak the language of mechanics," Lee said. "I can understand what the problems are when they arise and understand exactly what is being talked about."
And, he said, he knows how to motivate staff to get the job done -- and how to structure an organization so the work gets done right.
"The military helped me a lot, too," he said. "A lot of people seem to think we just bark orders in the military, but that's not the case. We ask people to do things that need to be done. And if it isn't done the first time, we restructure our approach to get the job done. It doesn't matter what uniform the person is wearing, whether it's a military uniform or a mechanic uniform -- they're still a person. Knowing how to handle people is key."
During a recent inspection, Wayne County buses logged better scores, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Marvin McCoy said. McCoyhad been charged with supervising the bus garage during the interim period while the school system searched for a new director.
A total of 124 buses were inspected in July over a period of three days. This inspection covered about 60 percent of the total fleet, and 50 buses were parked after the inspection. Only one bus was found to have zero defects.
Buses are scored during the inspection on a scale of 0 to 100. The lower the score, the fewer the number of defects, and therefore indicative of a safer bus fleet. This inspection produced a score of 53.77. Previous inspections have hauled in scores as high as 85.85.
So, the most recent set of scores represents an improvement in how buses are being maintained by the school system.
Since that July inspection, the school system has cleared 40 more buses to run and operate for the school year, leaving just seven with issues to be resolved.
This brings the total number of buses in operation to 195 out of 224 buses. Lee said due to some fires on buses and accidents, there will be some spare buses being used until these buses can be repaired or parts can be found.
The call numbers of the buses that are still out of commission for various reasons (and that are not spares) are 347, 414, 390, 409, 103, 393, 100, 352, 355, 403, 480 and 466.
Summer is time when bus mechanics have more access to buses with more substantial problems, McCoy said. When the school system received the most recent inspection reports, school officials said buses with minor problems, such as a rip in the seat or a broken taillight, were fixed first to get them back on the road sooner. But the more major fixes, such as oil leaks or brake trouble, take more time to rectify.
Brakes, however, were not a concern with this round of inspections.
"I personally drove all of the buses for brake tests after they were inspected," Lee said. "Not a single one failed."
Lee said the oldest buses in the fleet are from 1988 and 1989 and require more maintenance than newer models. They are also the most difficult to find parts for, but the easiest to maintain due to the simplicity of the mechanics, said Brandon Briggs, a school bus mechanic. Newer buses require working with computerized components that are more complex, Briggs said.
The oldest buses in the system are still being used because the school system must wait for the state to green light a bus replacement, Lee said.
"A bus usually runs for about 20 years or 200,000 miles, roughly," Lee said. "You drive them until the state OK's a replacement."
McCoy estimated that buses in the fleet run about 12,000 miles per day during the school year, and the total fleet travels more than one million miles per year.
Of the 14 mechanics employed in the garage who work on buses, nine of them have less than five years experience. Of those nine, six have less than a year of experience.
"It takes time to learn how to work on a bus," Briggs said.
During the monthly inspections required by the state, there is a checklist mechanics must use, and a total of 200 key points on that list that could potentially park a bus. These items range from major issues such as brake failure, worn out tires, or oil and exhaust problems, to minor problems such as rips in the seat upholstery.
"If there's a rip in the back of the seat that exposes the metal frame, a child involved in a wreck could potentially slam their head into the exposed metal," McCoy said.
Buses are repaired at a bus garage in the county, and the severity of the problems with a bus determines how long the repairs take.
Bus mechanic Charles Self said two people work on a bus at a time in an attempt to get it back on the road as quickly as possible.
When buses are sent to the shop for certain problems, other issues reveal themselves.
Self said mechanics frequently find problems outside of the reason a bus is sent to the garage "all the time."
Lee said he is incredibly proud of how the department has turned the situation around, adding that only a few buses should still be out of commission by the time school starts.
"They worked a lot of overtime," he said.