T
he adage “when you know, you know” is typ- ically associated with the notion that people intuitively know when they’ve met “The One,” the person they’re meant to spend the rest of
their life with. It seems that same saying also applies to school bus fleet managers and mechanics when it comes to their appreciation for LED lighting. Several seasoned profes- sionals acknowledge that while they may never have put pencil to paper to calculate the best return on investment, they intuitively know that LEDs are “The One” for them. Three industry professionals with more than six de-
cades of combined experience say they’re certain that their budgets and employees come out ahead thanks to the durability of LED lighting. “We’re representing the taxpayers’ dollars, and we
should be taking every opportunity that exists to repre- sent them as well as we can,” said Eric Kissel, director of transportation with Arizona’s Laveen Elementary School District. “I think you purchase on value, not price. “Whatever upfront cost you consider one versus the other, you also have the number of times you’re going to change that bulb in the lifetime of the bus and put the cost of the mechanic and the amount of time the bus is down into consideration.” Calculating opportunity costs of other work that the mechanic could be doing during that time has to be done, too, he said. “If we’re not changing the bulbs in dozens of positions
or not changing them as often, pretty soon I can argue the ROI is even or better,” Kissel said. “I can’t say I’ve done that, but I know if I just take an hour of a mechan- ic’s time (multiplied by) the amount of times over, I can get to that difference. But you can’t tell me that I’m not in a better position just by being more well-lit, better seen and better identified by other vehicles.” Todd Hawkins, senior vice president of maintenance
for First Student, the nation’s largest student transpor- tation provider with more than 48,000 yellow buses, noted the lifetime of many LEDs is 10 to 12 years. That is comparable to the lifecycle of school buses. While noting he has not conducted a precise compar-
ison between LEDs and incandescent lights, Hawkins shared the former save time and, hence, money. “Instinctively, there’s a savings because you’re not
going out there as often to change lights. If a mechanic has to go fix something, that just knocked 30 minutes off the job he was doing. He has to go out, troubleshoot what’s wrong, come back to the shop, get the bulb and change it, come back in and do the paperwork, and then get back to the other job.” Keshav Ragunathan, chief engineer for Summit School
Services, formerly known as National Express, that op- erates 15,000 buses, offered a similar perspective. “The incandescent light is really inexpensive but obviously
32 School Transportation News • MARCH 2026
requires more maintenance than LED lighting, which has a significantly higher life cycle. If you asked me right now, ‘What’s your delta between the two life cycles?’ Unfortunately, it is hard to quantify the benefits with a number because over time, a lot of variables come into the picture: Down time, labor costs, parts costs, etc.” However, he continued, the “plug and play” aspect of LED technology combined with its longer life cycle are two factors that tilt the scales in its favor. Kissel, impressed by LED’s brightness and determined
to increase his fleet’s visibility, was an early adopter of the technology roughly 20 years ago. He acknowledged that he ran into some reliability issues with the product during those first years even as he retrofitted the dis- trict’s buses with the then-new lighting. The lesson he learned was to strike hard bargains with vendors. “When I upgraded to LED, the agreement was if one
diode goes out in the first five years, you replace that light at no charge,” he said. Those early experiences also underscored the im-
portance of partnering with the right vendors, he said, noting the Laveen district enjoys a “tremendous partner- ship with First Light Safety Products.” He called the Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada firm’s fully
illuminated LED stop arm as “most impactful product I’ve seen on the outside of the bus” in his entire career.
More LED Considerations The topic of dead diodes remains an occasional chal- lenge even today, Kissel and Ragunathan concurred, because inspectors have never adopted a standard. “One inspector comes in and may call my light out
with two diodes missing over 25. The next inspector may go, ‘Oh, that’s still a well-lit light,’” Kissel said. Ragunathan agreed. “With the improvement on the di-
odes, you don’t necessarily have as much of an issue with something going out quickly. But when certain diodes are out, it will get down to the actual state inspector.” China is the leading manufacturer of LED chips, and
its exports have been caught up in the Trump admin- istration’s on-again, off-again tariffs intended to shift production to the U.S. Ragunathan noted that tariffs have added to his budget’s bottom line, but the effects can be difficult to quantify. Some vendors absorb the added costs, others quietly pass them on, and others will point them out, he said. New vehicle price increases are more likely to be the re- sult of steel, aluminum or copper tariffs. “Those are some of the big ones, but some of the electrical components fall into the category of being tariffed, too,” he added. Hawkins said long-term parts contracts have insulat- ed his budget to date and, like Ragunathan, he has not experienced any supply chain snags. The issue of vehicle lighting has become a topic of in- creased conversation in the wake of a National Congress
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