BY THE NUMB3RS
STN SURVEY REPORTS TECHNICIAN AND OPERATIONAL TRENDS
M
ost school bus technicians said they learn their trade on the job, according to a School Transportation News
maintenance survey conducted in late January and early February. More than 6,200 magazine subscribers with the job titles transportation director, supervisor, fleet manager or technician were asked a dozen questions related to shop operations. A total of 320 responded at press time for a return rate of more than 5 percent. Eighty-nine percent of those respond- ing said the primary way they receive training is hands on in the school bus ga- rage. Training sessions provided by vehicle or equipment manufacturers received the next most responses at 64 percent. In addition to how their techs are
trained to work on vehicles, additional questions ranged from tracking the cost per mile of operating school buses to maintaining special needs equipment to defining maintenance processes. Te vast majority of readers surveyed, 88 percent, said their shop utilize defined, periodic maintenance programs that incorporate one or more checklists, while 73 percent of those said the checklists cover all school bus sub-systems, components
such as the engine, transmission, brakes, electrical, tires and seats. Two-thirds of the responses said they define their operations’ maintenance programs as preventive, with nearly 14 percent saying their programs are proac- tive and 11 percent corrective. Just over 7 percent responded that their programs are either reliability centered or predictive. More than three-quarters reported that maintenance work processes are defined for shop employees, and half said they use a mix of electronic and paper work orders. Tirty-four percent said their operations rely only on paper work orders. Nearly 72 percent said they track the cost
per mile, or CPM, of operating school buses. One large fleet operator told STN in De- cember that it factors vehicle age and type or class, fuel systems, mileage and geographic area to determine cost. An operator in the northeast said CPM is about $0.19 per mile, with labor about $0.45. A southwest oper- ator told STN that CPM can fall to about $0.15 per mile, with labor about $0.35. Meanwhile, almost 69 percent said their
operation has yet to implement online parts purchasing and inventories. See the charts and graphs on the fol- lowing pages for more on these topics.
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