It’s amazing how quickly we adapt. I never thought I’d be paying more than $3 a gallon for gasoline, but it’s become a way of life now. Putting $50 of gasoline in my tank would have been unthinkable 10 years ago, but today it’s routine.

Routine, but not without impact. Rising prices, in general, are taking a significant toll. And not just at home. The way we do business must be looked at more carefully than ever. The bottom line has never been so important.

As the four contractors interviewed in the Contractor Roundtable beginning on pg. 41 mention, the cost of doing business is one of their greatest challenges. The rising cost of fuel is only a part of the problem. Labor, equipment and general supplies are also more expensive these days, which helps to explain why many contractors’ costs are escalating faster than the consumer price index.

The problem is that everyone is feeling the pinch: the school districts, the contractors, the industry’s suppliers and the people who work for these organizations. There’s no fat on the bone, and, unfortunately, we’re all chewing on the same bone.

What should be done?
We need to recalibrate our perceptions about how we, as separate but related entities, fit into the industry. That is, school districts and contractors need to embrace their business relationship as a true partnership, in which both parties are rooting for the other and, when necessary, supplying the other with information and insight. At the very least, they need to communicate openly, giving the other as much information as possible to meet mutual expectations.

Along the same lines, both school districts and contractors should be partnering with the industry’s suppliers. Let’s face it, the folks who manufacture school buses, components and ancillary equipment are critical to the success of the pupil transportation community. Without them, the industry’s incredible safety record would not be what it is today.

Operators need to ensure that they are taking advantage of the experience and know-how that suppliers can offer. After all, the equipment manufacturers have an industry-wide view of operational and maintenance issues because of their dealings with hundreds, no thousands, of school bus programs around the country.

Learn from the pros
And suppliers are more than happy to share their experience. Why? Because any information that they can pass along to their customers will help to strengthen the entire industry and help to ensure that it continues to provide the best possible service to 25 million children each school day.

There’s also an element of self-preservation at work. Suppliers know that a successful transportation program is less likely to be curtailed than one that is merely adequate or, worse, substandard. Successful programs ensure that new equipment will be needed down the road, which, in turn, keeps the suppliers’ assembly lines busy.

At the end of the day, though, the true value of partnerships isn’t about cost cutting or revenue generation, it’s about maximizing the ability of our industry to get children safely to school so they can get a meaningful education. It’s pretty simple, really.