PUBLISHER’S CORNER Bus Tech, Energy Take Center Stage Written by Tony Corpin | tony@stnonline.com W


e can’t stop the fact that our world is changing rapidly. The question is, who will adapt to this new normal and who will be left behind? AI is accelerating at


a blistering pace, and so is the movement of electrifica- tion, autonomous vehicles and robotics. Last month, I sat in the audience at ACT Expo in Las


Vegas for a fireside chat with Rivian CEO and founder R.J. Scaringe. My wheels were spinning as he described a future that will surely impact the direction of school transportation. He laid out a vision for the future over the next decade,


predicting a significant share of both passenger and commercial vehicles becoming electric, deeply connect- ed, software-defined, and increasingly capable of driving themselves. “If you’re a large-scale vehicle manufacturer, con- sumer or commercial, and you don’t have a connected, highly intelligent platform running the vehicle’s soft- ware and electronics, and the vehicle lacks self-driving capability, it’s hard to imagine holding market share by 2035,” he told the audience. School buses always trail the commercial trucking


market when it comes to adopting new technology. But many of the connectivity, safety and efficiency tools now standard on big rigs eventually make their way to school buses. The same pattern is likely to be true with autonomy and advanced driver assistance systems. I believe a world with fully driverless school buses transporting students are decades away, even further without an adult on board. But that doesn’t mean au- tonomy has nothing to offer us. The chance to redeploy school bus drivers from a pure vehicle operation stand- point into a dedicated safety or behavioral enhancement role is an interesting concept. We’ve known for years that onboard student behavior


is one of the leading reasons why school bus drivers leave the profession. Many drivers cite a lack of support from administration when incidents occur. If autono- my (or even advanced driver assistance features) can safely handle more of the driving task on certain routes, districts could reimagine the driver’s job as a mobile safety aide. Someone whose primary focus is managing the students, de-escalating issues and supporting mobile learning—and still operate the vehicle in a pinch. That shift could meaningfully ease the massive driver


shortage we’ve been suffering from while improving the onboard student experience and safety. During the ACT Expo discussion, Scaringe also talked about his new robotics company, Mind Robotics, which


58 School Transportation News • JUNE 2026


is exploring AI-powered, human-like robots for indus- trial settings using real factory data from Rivian. Could school bus OEMs re-imagine how they build school buses in the foreseeable future? I invite you to join us at STN EXPO in Reno, Nevada on


Sunday, July 12, as we assemble key school bus OEMs. They will share how they see AI, robotics and connected school buses impacting school transportation operations. The promise of AI route planning systems is closer to being realized than you think. Imagine continuous- ly learning from every bus in the fleet—and from the broader connected-vehicle ecosystem around them. We’ve discussed this concept at STN EXPO in the past as passenger cars, school buses and connected cities inter- act for improved safety and efficiency. Imagine a future where a robot or automated safety system safely stop traffic at a busy intersection so stu- dents can cross, while a safety aide stays focused on the children boarding or exiting. These aren’t science-fiction scenarios. They’re logical extensions of the connected, data-driven world Scaringe and others envision. School transportation has never been just about mov- ing kids from point A to point B. It’s about safety, equity, reliability and supporting the people who do the hard- est part of the job every day. The technologies Scaringe outlined—electrification, connectivity, intelligence and autonomy—won’t replace that human element. Done right, they can strengthen and supplement it. The sky has always been the limit in this industry.


Now, the technology is finally starting to catch up with the ambition. I can foresee a higher adoption of elec- tric school buses as a biproduct of this rapidly evolving technology environment, especially if one is dependent on the other. The timing couldn’t be better with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Clean School Bus Program expected to return this spring. The use of CSBP and grant funding has already helped hundreds of districts move toward electric school buses and other alternatives like propane. That renewed federal support is clearly re-energizing interest across the industry. School transportation leaders need more viable path-


ways backed by federal and state dollars to move toward cleaner alternatives and more efficient fleets on their own terms. Budget pressures are mounting from higher fuel costs, and that pressure will undoubtedly push more fleets to consider new ways to adapt and evolve in our every changing world. ●


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