IC Bus recently hosted the 13th Annual IC Bus University Training session, the first year the event has been held in-person since 2019. During the pandemic, the training was held virtually. This year, school bus technicians attended and completed the training program, which included multiple sessions geared toward different areas of bus maintenance.

The annual training consists of five one-week training sessions at the IC Bus manufacturing plant in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This year, the event consisted of three basic sessions and two advanced sessions. In order to attend an advanced session, technicians would have had to previously attended a session in 2017, 2018, or 2019.

The event included training on several supplier systems including Allison Transmission, Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems, BraunAbility, and Cummins, as well as training on electrical systems, gas engines, the service portal and OnCommand Connection. The advanced classes offered the same types of training with a more in-depth curriculum. All session attendees were given a tour of the IC Bus manufacturing plant and an overview of the IC Bus electric buses.

“When organizing IC Bus University, we take the time to listen to customer feedback as a means of inspiring the trainings and lessons for that year,” said Trish Reed, vice president, IC Bus. “We are constantly growing and improving the event to best benefit the education of our technicians.”

All advanced attendees received a NEXIQ Blue Tooth Diagnostic Link, a tool that helps technicians diagnose concerns and increase their bus fleet uptime by creating Navistar health reports and fault code action plans.

Similar to the 2019 lineup of activities, the skill test competition for the advanced class returned. All members of the first-place team were awarded winter work jackets embroidered with their names and the IC Bus University logo.

Maintenance is an important job, with the goal of the event to design training around each technician’s primary focus: to safely transport more than 26 million children to and from school each day. 

“As sustainability and electric school buses move towards the forefront of our company vision, we look to transition IC Bus University to reflect this focus,” said Reed. “The future of sustainability in the school bus industry is changing, and we want to support our technicians to be as successful as possible when completing their jobs.”

In 2023, the IC Bus University Training event hopes to continue its success and have additional technicians in attendance. Next year’s training sessions will take place over the span of five weeks, from June 12 to July 21.