Atlantic Express
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Atlantic Express Transportation Group Inc. is the largest American-owned and American-based school bus company in North America, providing transportation services since 1968. At its inception, the company provided special-education transportation services in the borough of Staten Island in New York City, utilizing a fleet of 16 vans. The company grew at an average rate of 25 percent annually, to its current fleet size of 6,876 vehicles. Operating in 11 U.S. states, the Atlantic Express operation includes contracts for some of the largest school districts in the nation, including New York City Board of Education, the School District of Philadelphia, St. Louis Public Schools, Los Angeles Unified School District and Chicago Public Schools. The company is directed by Domenic Gatto, president/CEO, who started out as a school bus driver for the Staten Island Bus Company, now part of Atlantic Express. Since 1978, Atlantic Express has achieved a 96 percent contract renewal rate. This is due, in part, to innovations in safety, training and maintenance. The company has adopted a SAFEBUS program, wherein each of its vehicles is outfitted with a decal saying, “How am I driving? Call 1-800-SAFEBUS.” When a motorist calls the 800 number, a 24-hour operator gathers data from the caller, verifies the data and immediately faxes a transcript of the call to the Atlantic Express management team as an incident report. The driver then receives disciplinary action based on his or her infraction. In the shop, mechanics use a computerized maintenance system called ShopFax, which uses a handheld scanner and barcodes to track vehicle repair. “Use of the scanners eliminates the time spent by mechanics in manually preparing reports, thus improving productivity, accuracy of data collection and record keeping,” explains Noel Cabrera, executive vice president. All Atlantic Express locations consistently receive scores in the 90 to 100 percent range on annual inspections, even those in states with some of the most stringent inspection requirements in the country. Atlantic Express has online access to the motor vehicle departments in all states for checking driver records. Personnel are assigned to monitor driver training, tests, violations and license renewals. Drivers are required to be in uniform and to be well groomed every day. Atlantic Express defends itself against the driver shortage by investing in hiring, training and maintaining professional workers. “Quality training, quality work environment, solid wages and solid benefits help keep employees content with their jobs and with Atlantic Express,” says Cabrera. One way in which the company ensures quality service is by employing field/road supervisors to monitor and upgrade driver performance. The field supervisors, who are generally former police officers, are trained to investigate unusual incidents, passenger complaints and traffic accidents and to report their findings to management for appropriate action. At random or at the request of management, field supervisors conduct road observations of buses using unmarked vehicles. They audit driver performance, appearance and paperwork preparation as well as vehicle condition and appearance. They also act as liaisons between the company and the school districts. This investment in highly trained, versatile staffing enables Atlantic Express to better support its employees, while at the same time better serving the public.
Laidlaw Education Services
NAPERVILLE, Ill. -- Imagine being responsible for safely transporting an entire population the size of Pittsburgh. That is Laidlaw Education Services’ challenge every school day. The largest private contractor of student transportation in North America, Laidlaw Education Services has a fleet of more than 40,000 school buses and transports 2.3 million schoolchildren to and from school each day. The company partners with more than 1,200 school districts and provides student transportation services from nearly 550 locations throughout 35 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces. Operationally, the company prides itself on passenger safety as its top priority. Laidlaw Education Services promotes such safety innovations as crossing-control arms to prevent children from walking close to the front of the bus. Most recently, the company installed the Child Check-Mate System, an electronic reminder that sounds an alarm at the end of a route, requiring the driver to walk to the back of the bus to check for sleeping children. “We believe providing safe, reliable transportation is the single most important commitment we can make to the students and to a school district,” says Bob Hach, president of Laidlaw Education Services. “As a result, safety is the driving force behind everything we do.” Hach attributes the company’s success to the exceptional performance and dedication of the more than 47,000 bus drivers and attendants, dispatchers, technicians and mechanics who personally see to it that the buses are safely maintained and the children arrive to and from school each day. Hach states that Laidlaw Education Services is alive and doing well, despite the well-known financial problems of its parent company, Laidlaw Inc. in Burlington, Ontario. In fact, Laidlaw Education Services was successful over the past year in converting an additional 300 school buses from district-operation for school systems in Dalton, Ga., and Dysart, Ariz. In addition to its successful partnerships with educational institutions, Laidlaw Education Services is a national corporate sponsor of Children’s Miracle Network (CMN) as well as supporting other community-based organizations and programs. Through bake sales, car washes, golf outings and even managers shaving their heads, the company’s employees have raised more than $1 million for CMN in the past three years to help children receive treatment at one of 170 hospitals throughout North America. The company chose to support CMN because 100 percent of locally generated donations stay in the community in which they were made to benefit children at participating hospitals. “Kids certainly are our business, so helping them through an organization like CMN was a natural,” says Hach.
