Bus company for francophone school board has a communication problem, parent says

Complaints are continuing to roll in about the company that buses students at Nova Scotia's francophone school board after one bus in Halifax was 4½ hours late dropping kids home earlier this week.

While the latest incident involved students at École Mer et Monde in south-end Halifax, a parent of children who go to other Conseil scolaire acadien provincial (CSAP) schools said there have been ongoing communication issues with the bus company Transco.

"I'm frustrated as a parent because these are our children, and our children are supposed to get from point A to point B in a safe manner," Amissa Singh, who has children attending both École Beaubassin and École secondaire du Sommet, told Radio-Canada in an interview on Thursday.

"Right now, there is a lack of communication with parents and we are unable to get ahold of Transco as a whole for any issues regarding our children's transportation."

Singh said her own children went through a lot of uncertainty last year with the school bus.

"Uncertainty with when they were going to get to school, how they were going to get to school, if they were going to show up late and be embarrassed or if I had to drive them," Singh said.

"We had to shuffle on the drop of a dime to figure out how we were going to get our kids to school on time so that they don't miss their education."

The former president of the Fédération des parents acadiens de la Nouvelle-Écosse told Radio-Canada in an interview in French that what happened on Monday was the latest example in a long history of service failures with Transco.

Caroline Arsenault said the lack of communication with families is unacceptable. She said parents calling Trancso directly get a voicemail and no responses.

Drivers are not properly supported, parent says

Transco — a subsidiary of First Student, which operates more than 900 vehicles in Quebec — did not respond to a request for comment from Radio-Canada on Thursday.

Earlier this week, the company said it regretted the "inconvenience and concern" regarding the 4½-hour bus delay on Monday. It said it was working with CSAP to review what led to the delay and how to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Singh said a lot of parents want to take out their frustration on the bus drivers because those are their first point of contact with Transco. But she said she believes it's not the fault of drivers, as they are not supported by the company or properly trained, and are not confident when put on routes they don't know.

Bus tracking system improvements coming, CSAP says

CSAP told families in a letter Thursday that it is working to improve the bus tracking system and that it would keep parents updated on its progress.

Arsenault said she's not sure improvements in the bus tracking system address the concerns families have with the overall lack of communication with Transco.

Transco is one of three bus providers for the Halifax Regional Centre for Education (HRCE). In a statement, an HRCE spokesperson said all three have GPS systems on board.

Families can log on to a web portal called BusPlanner where they can view the location of a student's bus starting 30 minutes before the beginning of a run and up until 30 minutes after it is scheduled to end.

"Our transportation team has the ability to track every bus at all times and phones are staffed at all times that buses have students on board, including when we experience lengthy end-of-day delays, such as snow storms or significant traffic issues," Lindsey Bunin, the spokesperson for the Halifax regional centre, wrote in an email.

When there is a delay, Bunin said notifications are sent out through BusPlanner to subscriber accounts, which all families have if their child is assigned to one of the centre's bus routes.

Bunin said delays are also posted to the BusPlanner alert page, emailed to parents that have accounts and texted to those that have added a mobile phone number to their account.