Bus driver shortage worsened by pandemic

The Apple Bus Company has been seeing a driver shortage that predates the pandemic according to management.

It's getting more difficult to get kids bused to school and back each day.

There's a shortage of bus drivers locally.

This was a problem even before the covid 19 pandemic began, but it's been magnified even more so since.

As kq2's ron johnson reporting how this has led to some unexpected changes.

<<ron johnson reportingthe general manager of apple bus here in st.

Joseph says he's been in need of more drivers, even before covid-19it is a challenge.

It's something that we're working on on a daily basis and we need good quality drivers.

He says the virus among other things, has made the staffing deficit even worse.covid also added to that.

Because you know we had some of our drivers had some underlying health issues and they decided to take a leave.

Currently, the company employs 68 full time drivers, the manager says he's in need of about fifteen more.

In addition to the small number of drivers, the pandemic is also shortening work hours for the company.

The st.

Joseph school district's decision move classes to a virtual format means they're now only working four days a week.

The route and everything stayed the same, but now we're only running monday tuesday thursday friday.

The manager says the lost days in revenue are among his biggest challenges, though work does continue through the pandemic.

Bus routes are now a little longer to give staff time to clean and disinfect surfaces.

What we do is we spray down all the seats, all the high touchable areas and everything to disinfect the bus between routes.

The task is one of the few things the company can plan on, as the virus leaves so many other things up in the air basically you look at it day by day, numbers are always changing.

Obviously you put you're best plan forward we reevaluate it in the next 30 days and what we need to do maybe we need to do something a little different or stay the same.

We're in an ever changing world today.ron johnson kq2 news>> the bus company is looking to fill those 15 spots.

They say they offer paid training and a one thousand dollar