Behind the familiar school bus brand of Thomas Built Buses is a manufacturing and engineering network that is undergoing a significant transformation.
During an October media event at Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation (FCCC) in Gaffney, South Carolina, Daimler Truck Specialty Vehicles executives outlined how making Thomas Built Buses and FCCC one business unit is changing the way school buses are designed, manufactured and supported throughout their service lives.
School Transportation News Publisher Tony Corpin attended the event earlier this month, where he toured the manufacturing facility and engineering validation center and spoke with company leadership about the implications for the school transportation industry.
Although the two companies have worked together for more than two decades, their operations have historically remained separate. Daimler Truck Specialty Vehicles President and CEO T.J. Reed said the consolidation is intended to eliminate those divisions and capitalize on shared resources.
“We had three separate engineering groups,” Reed explained, referring to the body engineering team at Thomas Built Buses in High Point, North Carolina, and the separate internal combustion and battery-electric chassis engineering teams at FCCC. “We combined those as what I call an engineering technical powerhouse.
The change adds capacity for product development and ongoing vehicle support.
For school transportation directors, the significance of that integration extends beyond manufacturing efficiency. It could influence everything from the technology available on new school buses to how quickly maintenance concerns are resolved.
Connecting the Chassis and the Body
The relationship between Thomas Built Buses and FCCC dates to 2004, when the companies began collaborating on the Saf-T-Liner C2 school bus platform. Today, FCCC manufactures school bus chassis in Gaffney before transporting them approximately 125 miles along Interstate 85 to the Thomas Built Buses body assembly plant in High Point, North Carolina. The Gaffney facility operates three production lines dedicated to school buses, recreational vehicles and walk-in vans.
Reed said the specialty vehicle business differs from traditional truck manufacturing because the vehicles require more specialized configurations for transporting people.
“Everything we build has a body. We don’t build tractors here,” he said, noting the importance of integrating mechanical and electrical systems between the chassis and body.
Combining the engineering teams allows the manufacturer to share knowledge across its school bus, recreational vehicle and commercial delivery platforms.
During the tour of the engineering validation center, company representatives explained that improvements developed for one vehicle application can now be more readily transferred to others. For example, engineering solutions designed to reduce vibration between a school bus body and chassis can inform similar applications for recreational vehicles.
Electrical technology offers even greater opportunities for collaboration, particularly as school buses incorporate more sophisticated controls, diagnostics and battery-electric systems.
Manufacturing Improvements and New Powertrain Options
The organizational restructuring comes alongside investments in Thomas Built Buses manufacturing facilities and product lineup.
Reed said the company’s High Point operations recently completed improvements to its historic North Campus, including a dedicated production line for the Minotour Type A school bus. The changes have increased production capacity while supporting quality improvements.
The company also updated its Type D transit-style school buses to share more components and manufacturing processes with the higher-volume Saf-T-Liner C2 platform. Reed explained the changes are designed to improve production output and consistency.
Meanwhile, Thomas Built Buses is expanding its propulsion options as school districts weigh fuel costs, fleet replacement needs and infrastructure investments. The manufacturer is preparing to introduce the Cummins B6.7 Octane gasoline engine in the Saf-T-Liner C2, complementing its existing diesel and battery-electric offerings.
Electrification also remains an important part of the company’s strategy, despite changes to federal funding and the regulatory environment. Reed pointed to the second-generation Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley electric school bus, which uses an Accelera by Cummins electric axle, as an example of continued investment.
The company is also developing its electric Type D platform, the Saf-T-Liner eHDX2 Wattson, which shares powertrain technology with the Jouley.
At the engineering validation center, attendees learned how the electric buses undergo reliability and durability testing designed to replicate years of service in a compressed period.
Company engineers said durability testing can simulate approximately 300,000 miles of operation in less than six months. The process includes vehicle testing on specialized tracks, vibration testing and evaluations of battery protection during crash scenarios.
For school districts considering alternative powertrains, these efforts underscore the importance of evaluating long-term reliability alongside vehicle range and operating costs.
One Customer Service Operation, Fewer Delays
Perhaps the most immediate impact of the consolidation for school transportation operators is occurring after vehicles leave the factory.
Nick Rini, vice president of quality and customer experience for Daimler Truck Specialty Vehicles, said the company has unified its previously separate customer assistance operations into one centralized system.
Previously, Thomas Built Buses and FCCC maintained separate customer assistance centers and quality management structures, despite providing components for the same vehicle. The consolidation created a single customer assistance center operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with specialists supporting the company’s different product lines.
Rini said the restructuring did not result in staffing reductions. Instead, the company expanded its aftermarket support and quality functions. The goal is to eliminate unnecessary handoffs between departments and accelerate the resolution of service concerns.
An out-of-service bus can require route adjustments, substitute vehicles or additional maintenance labor, faster response times can have a direct operational impact. Rini explained that vehicle downtime is a key performance indicator for the organization.
The company strives to complete service work within 48 hours, while vehicles remaining out of service for five days trigger additional attention and escalation.
That process can include coordinating with dealerships, locating replacement parts or engaging suppliers such as Cummins to resolve powertrain concerns.
“We’re seeing results on days out of service,” Rini said, adding that the company is also observing quality improvements in manufacturing and operations.
Remote Diagnostics and the Future of Maintenance
The consolidation also presents opportunities for more advanced diagnostics and technical support.
During the event, Corpin asked company executives about predictive maintenance technology, telematics and the potential use of augmented reality to assist technicians.
Rini explained that DTSV already monitors telematics information from certain customer fleets, although those capabilities are not yet as extensive as the company’s commercial truck operations.
Battery-electric school buses represent an area where the manufacturer has made greater progress.
“Telematics on battery electric is really probably where we’ve seen the most opportunity, and really we’ve seen the most success, too,” Rini said.
The technology allows the company to access real-time vehicle data, identify early warning indicators and assist with remote diagnostics.
However, the system continues to evolve, with the manufacturer working to make diagnostic information more accessible throughout its customer support organization.
Remote technical assistance is also becoming part of the service strategy.
Rini described technology that allows customer support specialists to guide technicians through repairs using live video connections, potentially reducing the need for additional personnel to travel to a service location.
The manufacturer is beginning to deploy the capability in the field, with plans to expand its use.
Rini said the technology could be particularly beneficial when specialized technicians and access to vehicles are limited.
AI may eventually provide additional opportunities, but the company is approaching its application to customer service cautiously.
“If AI makes us better, then we’ll use it,” Rini said, emphasizing that the company does not intend to replace human customer support simply for the sake of adopting technology.
What It Means for School Transportation?
Thomas Built Buses currently accounts for approximately 35 percent of the school bus market, according to Reed, making the direction of Daimler Truck Specialty Vehicles significant for transportation operations across North America.
For school districts, the consolidation could translate into greater product consistency, more coordinated technical support and faster integration of new technology.
It also highlights the increasingly interconnected relationship between commercial truck engineering and school bus manufacturing.
As transportation departments evaluate new vehicles, manufacturers are being asked to deliver more than a reliable bus. They must also provide accessible diagnostics, responsive service networks and technology that supports increasingly complex fleet operations.
Daimler’s approach is to bring those functions closer together, from initial engineering through manufacturing and aftermarket support.
Article written with the assistance of AI and live recording notes. This version corrects the spelling of Nick Rini’s name.
Long before GPS, onboard cameras and electric drivetrains, students climbed aboard horse-drawn wagons, wood-bodied buses and heavy-duty coaches built for routes that could be as demanding as the communities they served. Today, a small number of those vehicles survive in museums, company collections and private hands, offering a tangible record of how student transportation evolved.
The familiar yellow school bus did not arrive fully formed. In rural North America, getting children to school was once a local problem solved with whatever transportation was available. In the U.S., horse-drawn “kid hacks,” short for hackney carriages, and school wagons carried students before purpose-built motorized buses became common. Wayne Works developed a horse-drawn School Car in 1892 and a motorized version by 1914. By 1932, 63,000 school buses were operating in the U.S., according to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Those buses were also changing education itself. Transportation made it possible for rural districts to close small one-room schools and move students to larger consolidated schools.
A similar transition occurred across Canada, and surviving vehicles at the Western Development Museum in Saskatchewan help tell that story.
Kaiti Hannah, curatorial associate for the Western Development Museum, told School Transportation News that the museum’s Saskatoon location includes a small display about the shift during the 1950s from one-room schoolhouses to busing students to larger urban schools.
Among the museum’s most evocative artifacts is the Conquest school bus, a horse-drawn vehicle displayed near a one-room schoolhouse. The museum also has an archival image of the bus dating to 1926. Hannah said the museum does not have extensive information about the vehicle’s early history, but it entered the collection in 1961.
Another early Saskatchewan bus, displayed at the museum’s North Battleford location, has a more detailed provenance. It was one of eight school buses purchased by the Viscount School Board in 1923 from William Landa’s Landa Carriage Works in Saskatoon. Each cost $350, and the buses served in the school district for about 20 years. The surviving example entered the Western Development Museum collection in 1949.
Hannah said she is not aware of any preserved early Canadian motorized school buses or private Canadian collectors specializing in historic pupil transportation vehicles, though she noted examples may exist elsewhere. That uncertainty is part of the preservation challenge. Unlike locomotives, automobiles or aircraft, school buses were working vehicles that often stayed in service until they were worn out, repurposed or disposed of.
Vehicles like those are reminders that “school bus” once described a much broader range of equipment than the standardized vehicles familiar today.
In the U.S., that standardization took a major step forward in 1939, when rural education specialist Frank W. Cyr organized a national conference at Teachers College, Columbia University. Delegates developed 44 standards covering such details as body dimensions, aisle widths and doors. They also selected the yellow-orange color that became the enduring visual identity of the American school bus.
Before 1939, buses could appear in a variety of colors and configurations. Cyr’s conference brought representatives together to establish greater consistency, with visibility and safety among the considerations. Yellow was gradually adopted across the country. What began as a standardization decision became one of the most recognizable symbols of public education.
Before that standardization, manufacturers were already experimenting with stronger bodies and purpose-built designs.
One of the most significant survivors is Blue Bird No. 1, completed by Albert L. Luce in 1927. Luce had previously mounted a purchased wood bus body on a Ford truck frame for a customer, only to see the body begin to shake apart on rough Georgia roads. He responded by reinforcing a later body with a steel framework beneath the wood. The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, Michigan, now identifies that 1927 vehicle as the oldest surviving school bus in America.
Julianne Barclay, a Blue Bird spokesperson, said the original bus was sold to a customer and placed into school bus service. Only later did it become known retroactively as Blue Bird “No. 1.”
The Luce family reacquired the bus in 1946 and restored it, placing the body on a Ford Model TT chassis, Barclay said. It was restored again in the 1970s and donated to The Henry Ford Museum in 2008. A replica is displayed at Blue Bird’s Fort Valley, Georgia, facility.
The preservation story is continuing as Blue Bird approaches its 100th anniversary in 2027. Barclay said the Luce family traditionally kept a bus approximately every 10 years, and a couple of those historic vehicles are being restored by Blue Bird dealers as part of the centennial. Blue Bird also plans to develop a more formal archive as the company looks toward its next century.
The 1927 bus captures an era when school bus construction was still evolving rapidly. Its wood and steel body seems far removed from a modern Type C or Type D bus, but the engineering problem behind it remains recognizable: Build a vehicle durable enough to carry students safely over the roads it will encounter every day.
A preserved 1940 Chevrolet school bus at the North Carolina Transportation Museum illustrates another important step in that evolution. The bus was built by the company then known as Perley A. Thomas Car Works. Perley A. Thomas had worked as chief engineer for Southern Car Company before establishing his own business in 1916 after the company closed. His operation initially focused on streetcars before moving into school bus manufacturing as automobiles and road transportation expanded. Thomas Built Buses began building school buses in 1936.
Matt Abbott, collections manager for the North Carolina Transportation Museum, said the museum’s 1940 Chevrolet Thomas Built Bus was used by Iredell County until it was retired around 1960. The county continued using it in parades after its regular service life ended.
Thomas Built Buses regained possession of the bus in 1995. It was restored in 2003 and donated to the museum in February 2007, Abbott said.
The bus is an especially striking contrast with today’s interiors. According to Thomas Built Buses, the all-steel vehicle has a six-cylinder gasoline engine and four long benches on which children sat facing each other rather than facing forward.
Meanwhile, International’s IC Bus traces its origins to a similar time, in 1936 with predecessor Ward Body Works’ first all-steel school bus.
That difference is more than cosmetic. School bus design increasingly became shaped by formal safety requirements. Federal school bus standards that took effect April 1, 1977, addressed rollover protection, body joint strength and passenger seating and crash protection. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 222 established the compartmentalization concept used in large school buses, including higher, stronger seat backs, additional padding and controlled seat spacing.
Preserved buses make those changes visible in a way a written timeline cannot. Walk from an early side-bench interior to a later high-back school bus seat, and decades of safety engineering are immediately apparent.
Keeping History on the Road
Not every preserved bus spends its retirement standing still.
At the Templeton Historical Museum in Templeton, California, a restored 1933 school bus remains licensed, insured and roadworthy. The bus was purchased new by the Templeton School District in 1933 and remained in student transportation service until 1949, according to the district’s history. Museum volunteers later spent five years restoring it.
This 1933 school bus sits in the Templeton Historical Museum located near Paso Robles, California. It is a regular entry in the local July 4 parade.
Steve Vize of the Templeton Historical Museum said the vehicle continued serving the district even after its days of transporting students ended.
“It was later used as a truck within the school district for various tasks,” Vice said, adding that auto shop students drove it during the 1970s.
The bus also developed a second life as a community fixture. Vice said it appeared in Templeton’s Fourth of July Parade in the 1970s. Restoration reporting from 2014 said the bus had not had a running engine since its last parade appearance in 1985, before volunteers returned it to operating conditions.
Today, history is moving again.
“It is licensed and insured, and we drive it in the July 4 parade every year,” Vice added. “It is always on display when we have community events.”
The bus offers a particularly literal example of living history. It does not simply show visitors what school transportation once looked like. It returns to the same community streets where generations have seen it work, parade and reappear.
Even darker periods in school bus history are preserved. The Brights Pioneer Museum near LeGrand, California houses the actual International Loadstar Chowchilla school bus that three armed men kidnapped with its school bus driver and 26 children on board on July 15, 1976. The museum is housed about 16 miles to the northwest of Chowchilla, California.
Ryan Hahn, a consultant who has worked in student transportation for 25 years, takes a similar approach with vintage Gillig buses that he still puts to work at industry-related events.
“One of the things that we do to preserve history and also to make it a point when we advertise is we use vintage school buses like this one,” Hahn said of his 1969 Gillig.
He purchased the bus from a church that had owned it for 35 years and kept it in a garage. As a result, Hahn said, the vehicle remains in “really, really excellent condition.”
Rather than treating the Gillig only as a display piece, Hahn uses it to carry people to local events, trade shows, dinners and functions for school business officials and superintendents. Industry professionals can experience the vehicle as a bus, not simply view it behind a barrier.
Gillig itself has roots reaching back to the 19th century and moved into school bus manufacturing in the 1930s. The manufacturer later became known on the West Coast for rugged school bus designs and introduced diesel power to its school bus line in the 1950s.
Hahn’s second vintage Gillig, a 1970 model, demonstrates just how specialized some of those buses became. The vehicle was owned by Shasta College in Redding, California, and transported college students to sporting events. Hahn said the college also operated routes that picked up students at hub locations during the 1960s and 1970s.
The bus uses a midship engine mounted on its side, commonly described as a “pancake” engine, rather than a rear-engine layout. It is also a tandem-axle vehicle with both rear axles driven.
“A lot of districts and school systems would buy these for heavy loads,” Hahn explained.
His bus seats 97 students and operated in snow country, where the driven tandem rear axles and locking differential could provide additional traction. The layout placed the engine beneath the floor near the center of the bus, creating a mechanical configuration that would look unusual to many technicians and drivers accustomed to current conventional or rear-engine school buses.
The capacity itself speaks to a particular chapter of school transportation history, when manufacturers developed extremely large buses to accommodate growing student populations and demanding routes.
Across the surviving buses, the details differ: Wood bodies, steel reinforcements, side-facing benches, midship diesels, tandem axles and capacities that would raise eyebrows today. But together they document the same long-running challenge: Finding dependable ways to connect students with education.
They also show how much of student transportation history can disappear when vehicles are scrapped after their useful service life. Museums can preserve examples, manufacturers can maintain corporate artifacts and private owners can restore buses. But the number of surviving vehicles becomes smaller with each generation.
That makes the preservation work taking place now especially valuable. Blue Bird’s approaching centennial celebration is prompting new attention to company archives and restorations. Museums in Saskatchewan, North Carolina and California are maintaining vehicles tied to local education and manufacturing history. And collectors such as Hahn are keeping old buses operational enough to let a new generation step aboard.
For an industry built around moving forward, these buses provide a reason to look back.
Long before telematics, alternative fuels and advanced driver-assistance systems, there were school wagons crossing rural communities, early bodies rattling over rough roads, all-steel buses replacing wood construction and massive diesel coaches engineered to move nearly 100 students at a time.
The technology has changed dramatically. The mission has not.
While the industry awaits information on the remaining $2.3 billion available through the EPA Clean School Bus Program, three U.S. representatives hope to extend the program through 2031, reauthorizing another $1 billion in funding annually for five more years.
To date, the CSBP has awarded $2.7 billion to replace more than 8,500 school buses, reaching nearly every U.S. state. More than 5,200 electric school buses funded through the program have already been delivered to schools. Ninety-one percent of the new school buses applied for were electric. The remaining 9 percent consisted mostly of propane with a small number of CNG also awarded. No new CNG-powered school bus models are being manufactured.
The Clean School Bus Reauthorization Act builds on the Clean School Bus Program funding included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed into law in 2021. The program was expected to award $5 billion over five years, through competitive grants and rebates. However, following President Donald Trump’s return to office, the funding has reached a standstill. The last funding opportunity from the EPA was the 2024 Clean School Bus Rebate Program, which opened September 2024. However, the EPA canceled the rebate and no organizations received awarded funds. The last round of distributed funds was the 2023 rebate program.
The new legislation would amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 by replacing the program’s current authorization period of fiscal years 2022 through 2026 with fiscal years 2027 through 2031. Under the existing statute, the program is authorized to receive $1 billion annually, totaling $5 billion. Rep. Jahana Hays, D-Conn., introduced the bill Oct. 9 and was joined by Reps. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, and Buddy Carter, R-Ga.
“Since I came to Congress in 2019, I have advocated for clean school bus funding. As an educator with over a decade of classroom experience, I know how damaging diesel exhaust can be for student well-being and learning. The consequences of diesel emissions extend to our environment, exacerbating the effects of greenhouse gas emissions,” Hayes said in a statement. “The Clean School Bus Reauthorization Act will help to provide cleaner and healthier air for school children in Connecticut and across the country, support clean energy jobs, and protect our environment for decades to come.”
The legislation would maintain the existing funding structure, which allocates $500 million annually for clean and zero-emission school buses and another $500 million exclusively for zero-emission school buses. Funding supports the replacement of older school buses with cleaner alternatives.
It does not establish new grant requirements or change program eligibility. Rather, it extends the existing authorization for five additional years.
According to a press release, The Clean School Bus Reauthorization Act is endorsed by the American School Bus Industry Coalition which includes Blue Bird, First Student, Beacon Mobility, National Express, Highland, Greenpower Motor Company, National School Transportation, Student Transportation of America, and IC Bus. Additional endorsers include the American Bus Association, American Asthma and Allergy Foundation (AAFA), League of Conservation Voters, Moms Clean Air Force, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, and World Resources Institute’s (WRI) Electric School Bus Initiative.
“As this bill shows, there’s real enthusiasm on both sides of the aisle to give children the clean ride to school they deserve,” she said. “This bipartisan support is no surprise, as 51 percent of school districts with electric school buses on the road or coming soon are in Congressional districts represented by Republicans.
“The Clean School Bus Program has been a game-changer, answering school districts’ call to replace aging diesel buses with clean, zero-emissions vehicles in rural, suburban and urban communities alike,” Gander continued. “Replacing diesel buses with electric buses protects children from the dangers of diesel exhaust pollution, which disproportionately impacts low-income and Black communities.”
She added that electric school buses are popular with school districts that use them, especially the drivers behind the wheel. The number of ESBs on the road today is 12 times higher than it was five years ago, she noted.
“With diesel prices at record highs, Congress has a chance to help school districts save big on fuel costs and improve children’s health at the same time,” she said.
Meanwhile, First Student posted on Facebook that it welcomes the bipartisan introduction of the legislation.
“As the program’s largest recipient of funding, First Student has seen firsthand its importance in helping bring zero-emission school buses to our customers students and communities we serve,” the post reads. “Continued bipartisan support for this program is important to helping school districts and communities access funding for cleaner school bus technologies, including electric school buses.”
The school bus contractor added that reauthorizing the program would help preserve a pathway for Congress to continue supporting ESBs.
With the return of the Clean School Bus Program reportedly still one month away, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is accepting applications for approximately $180 million through the 2026 Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) national grant competition.
Eligible projects include school bus replacements powered by battery-electric, diesel, gasoline and propane as well as after-treatment retrofits and engine upgrades. The DERA funding also covers other diesel vehicles and equipment.
EPA announced the national grants on Sept. 24. Applications are due through Grants.gov by 11:59 p.m. Eastern on Jan. 22, 2027. Selection notifications are anticipated in May, with awards expected in July.
According to the Notice of Funding Opportunity, the national competition combines approximately $65 million from fiscal 2024, $62 million from fiscal 2025, and $53 million from fiscal 2026. Final awards depend on funding availability, application quality and agency priorities. EPA said it expects to award 120 entities, with the maximum amount of each award set at $12 million. No minimum dollar amount was provided.
School Bus Eligibility and DERA Funding Limits
Eligible DERA applicants include public school districts responsible for student transportation that own or operate diesel fleets, other qualifying government agencies and certain nonprofits. For-profit school bus contractors cannot apply directly but may receive support through programs administered by eligible grant recipients, including rebates.
Diesel, alternative-fuel and electric school bus replacements are eligible, subject to program requirements. For selected school bus replacement projects, federal funding is limited to 25 percent, 35 percent or 45 percent of eligible vehicle costs, depending on certified nitrogen oxides emissions. Electric replacements fall under the 45 percent limit, but charging equipment including is ineligible. EPA said charging equipment includes chargers/EVSE, electrical panels or service upgrades, wiring and conduit, design and engineering, electricity, and stationary battery storage.
Existing school buses must be operational, have at least three years of remaining life, and have been owned and operated by the participating fleet owner during the two years before the upgrade. They generally must have accumulated at least 7,000 miles annually during those years.
Replacement projects generally require scrapping or permanently disabling the old bus within 90 days after the replacement becomes operational, with limited EPA-approved alternatives.
National program webinars are scheduled for Oct. 13, Oct. 28 and Nov. 12. Questions about the competition are due Nov. 24.
DERA State Funding and Oct. 1 Webinar
Separately, EPA said last week it anticipates approximately $27 million in DERA state funding for fiscal 2025 and another $27 million for fiscal 2026 — approximately $54 million combined, subject to appropriations.
That funding is allocated by formula rather than through the national competition. Participating states and territories will receive both fiscal years’ funding in one grant to support state-administered grants and rebates. School buses are eligible.
States that match their federal base allocation with qualifying nonfederal funding can receive an additional federal incentive equal to 50 percent of that base allocation.
EPA held an Oct. 1 webinar that provided an overview of the state program. State and territorial notices of intent to participate are due Oct. 8, with final allocations scheduled for Oct. 15. Application packages are due Nov. 19.
Those deadlines apply to participating states and territories, according to EPA. School districts seeking state-administered funding should follow their state agency’s grant or rebate process.
Article written with the assistance of AI and EPA documents.
The new school year has begun in the Empire State, and local school districts and bus companies have an additional five years to transition to all-electric fleets. But transportation leaders and policymakers say the clock is still ticking on major funding and infrastructure challenges that could make or break the ambitious mandate.
As part of the 2027 fiscal year budget passed in May, lawmakers extended the deadline for full compliance with New York’s electric school bus mandate from 2035 to 2040 and the requirement for all new school bus purchases to be zero-emission from 2027 to 2032. The move is widely viewed as a necessary reset for the nation’s largest school transportation system, but sources caution that time alone won’t solve the structural barriers districts face in electrifying their fleets.
“It’s great that both parts of the legislation were moved down five years, but the looming questions weren’t answered, and the school districts still have so many questions that the contractors really can’t answer,” said Corey Muirhead, executive vice president for New York City contractor Logan Bus. “They still don’t understand how the state funding is going to work and how they’re going to get reimbursed.”
A First Step, Not a Finish Line
For years, the state’s three primary school transportation associations—the New York Association for Pupil Transportation (NYAPT), New York School Bus Contractors Association (NYSBCA) and New York State Bus Distributors Association (NYSBDA)—have warned that the mandate, as originally written, was moving faster than the market, utilities and school budgets could reasonably support.
“Over the past five years, New York’s school transportation industry…has collaborated closely with Gov. [Kathy] Hochul’s administration and state lawmakers,” said lobbyist Andre Claridge, who represents NYAPT and the NYSBDA and formerly worked with the NYSBCA. “We have kept state leaders updated on our progress toward meeting the electric school bus mandate while highlighting the significant challenges faced by local school districts and industry partners.”
Claridge called the five-year extension “a welcome first step,” but stressed that the law’s language “leaves no room for innovation and requires revision.” He and other industry leaders are pushing for not only extended timelines, but increased state investment and regulatory flexibility that would allow other zero- and near-zero-emission technologies to count toward compliance.
“We opposed the mandate from the beginning and advocated for no mandate or a more realistic timeline. Finally, they heard us,” commented David Christopher, executive director of NYAPT. “We are now looking at how we will lobby going forward, because five years will go by quickly, and we need to provide realistic transition plans for the legislature to consider. Hopefully they will listen.”
Tim Flood, executive vice president for New York school bus contractor The Trans Group, said the compliance delay offers a little relief but noted the challenges “are still very real and numerous.”
“I think there will be changes to the mandate. I certainly hope there will be,” he continued, citing a belief that ongoing negotiations will add more delays between now and 2032. “But at this point and time, we have to move forward as it is exactly how it is.”
The new deadline could also be impacted by upcoming political election cycles, he added.
Meanwhile, the extension could provide breathing room to build out a more data-driven, district-by-district, company-by-company approach.
An electric Type A school bus operated by Trans Group company Educational Bus Transportation, Inc. on Long Island, New York.
Where Electric Buses Prove Viable Is a Diverse Playing Field
“There is no category of district based on what we’ve seen where an electric school bus is inherently not viable,” said Alok Disa, senior advisor for the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) clean transportation team.
NYSERDA is tasked by the state legislature with awarding funds to districts for purchasing electric school buses and related infrastructure as well as developing electrification plans for fleets. Disa pointed to real-world operations in rural, suburban and urban communities based on the organization’s experience work with school districts across the state.
About 50,000 school buses of all fuel types operate across New York. The split between large school buses and Type A “vans” is about 60-40.
Disa explained that more than 350 electric school buses are currently registered in New York state, up from roughly 250 to 275 the previous year, and 54 school districts currently have at least one electric school bus deployed. The World Resource Institute’s Electric School Bus Initiative says the number is more like 561 ESBs deployed in New York, with over 1,200 in the pipeline or “committed” to a school district or bus company through state or federal funding.
Despite the figures, most electric school buses operate outside New York City, countering the perception that electrification is only advancing in dense urban markets, Disa noted.
Early data from NYSERDA’s work with school districts on the fleet electrification planning program suggests that approximately 80 percent of routes statewide fall within the range today’s electric school buses can handle, once reasonable safety margins and cold-weather performance are factored in. In general, Disa said NYSERDA estimates that roughly 70 to 80 miles per day is the typical working range for many morning and afternoon home-to-school routes, even in cold regions such as the Adirondacks, Western New York and the Finger Lakes.
“We recommend that districts begin their electric school bus transition with some of their a.m./p.m. routes…rather than starting with extracurricular or longer trips,” he said, adding that districts operating buses in severe winter conditions have largely been able to keep those vehicles in service with appropriate planning and protocols.
Challenging Case in Point
In addition to being the transportation director for Naples Central School District, located about an hour drive southeast of Rochester, Pat Elwell also owns personal electric vehicles. That led him to push the district to apply for the first round of EPA Clean School Bus Program funding in 2022, around the same time the state legislature passed the electric mandate.
Elwell is also a bus mechanic, so his attention was finely tuned to how the ESBs would operate once the first two were delivered in March 2024. The district also has an electric Chevrolet Equinox used for students served by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
“Our first issue came right out of the gate when our Level 2 chargers were taking 17-plus hours to charge our buses,” he shared with STN. “Working with the charger company, and getting a crash course in charger programing, we were able to fix this problem to where they [now] charge up within six to eight hours.”
Otherwise, he said maintenance has been “negligible,” though brake inspection intervals had to be cut in half to six months or 6,000 miles.
“I received a frantic radio transmission one morning from the driver that she smelled a burning smell on the bus. When the bus made it to the transportation facility, I quickly found that the smell was from the right front brake,” recounted Elwell, who is also the president of NYAPT’s Wayne-Finger Lakes chapter. “Turns out that with one pedal drive the drivers do not use the brakes much, therefore the pads had seized in the caliper bracket.”
While he said the ESBs only need one daily charge to operate all in-district and the one out-of-district route in 40- and 50-degree spring temperatures, an obvious challenge has been heating the ESBs in winter. Elwell said he learned the 10kWh heat pumps originally installed were too small for the cabin heating system. Even then, issues have remained.
“Working with the engineers at IC Bus they came to the conclusion that a 20-kWh pump should fix this problem,” he explained. “We did swap them out, and the difference in heat and battery consumption was significantly better. Fast forward to winter 2026, with sustained temps in the single digits and below zero, and the buses could not produce heat to be able to operate the buses safely and comfortably. Therefore, we moved the runs to diesel buses.”
He added that a repeated test of winter-time range in January and February 2025 documented the need for mid-day charging to complete back-to-back runs within the district service area, “which still holds true to this day,” he said.
The longest Naples routes are 80 miles round trip per day, Elwell continued, with the average morning and afternoon routes being 29 miles. In addition to the two EVs, the fleet currently consists of 13 diesel Type C school buses, six gasoline Type A vans, three SUVs, and a sedan.
“We currently use diesel/gasoline buses for out-of-district routes and field/athletic trips as the ESBs do not have the range,” he added.
So far, he said he has calculated a cost of around $0.57 per mile/kWh for his ESBs and $0.65 per mile for diesel. He added that he has been working with NYSERDA to develop a better formula.
Meanwhile, there’s the issue of support. It was only a couple of years ago Lion Electric filed for bankruptcy protection and was then acquired by Montreal investors, with the caveat that the electric school bus line would only be sold and serviced in Quebec. Other players in the segment have also fallen by the wayside, which creates concern for long-term customer support and warranty coverage.
“Some of those chassis, those companies aren’t even in business anymore, and I think that’s going to be one of the challenges,” commented Trans Group’s Flood. “Maybe not as much in the vehicles but in charging stations, in charging software. There are a lot of options, but how many are going to be there three, four or five years from now?”
“We don’t find a problem with electric buses because we are lucky enough to be in a location with sufficient power and have routes that are relatively short … [W]e’ve never had a bus where the batteries have been drained fully,” commented CEO Matt Berlin. “We are not worried about someone being stranded in the middle of rural New York. In the worst case, they’re in the middle of Queens.”
Berlin added that if NYCSBUS was running 100 ESBs, it might be a different story.
New York City formed the non-profit NYCSBUS in 2021 after acquiring the assets of school bus contractor Reliant Transportation. NYCSBUS operates a fleet of over 900 school buses with 888 routes. Twenty-nine of the school buses are electric. All so far are Type A’s consisting of 22 Micro Birds, six Type A Collins Bus (five with Lightning eMotors electric drives and one with a Motiv), and a RIDE Achiever.
As of the new school year, Berlin said the average daily route any school bus travels a day is 65 miles, which is normally within range of an ESB. A quarter of the 888 daily routes are 30 miles or shorter.
“We are not putting our EVs on every single route. We’re lucky that the city is compact,” he explained, adding that ESBs aren’t currently used on longer routes from Queens to New Jersey. “We’re lucky that regenerative braking benefits urban driving more than rural.”
He said the 29 Type A ESBs cost $0.13 per mile to operate, compared to $0.45 per mile for gasoline ($4.10 per gallon and 9 mpg) and $1 per mile for diesel ($6 per gallon and 6 mpg).
Like elsewhere in the state, Berlin said winter temperatures impact the range. He added that a proprietary route planning tool calculates which routes are best served by an ESB or an internal-combustion bus. The set goal is to return the former to the depot with a 20-percent charge remaining each day.
He also is looking at the viability of adding repowered school buses with electric batteries.
“We think the promise of repowering is terrific, if it worked right, and we haven’t seen it work. But if it did, it would cut the [purchase] price by a third,” he added. “Not to mention create jobs in New York City and train another generation of mechanics in how to work with these vehicles.”
Billions Still Needed for Buses and Charging
While route viability is trending positive, at least in some areas, dollars remain a major sticking point.
“It’s a massive capital outlay to reach this goal for many folks,” observed Flood at Trans Group. “For us as contractors, for school districts, whether they’re operating their own [fleet] or contracting or a combination of both, allocating or acquiring the capital to do those things … it’s just a challenge.”
Logan Bus’s Muirhead noted that new purchase costs of ESBs, could range from 30-percent to as high as 70-percent more than an internal combustion engine bus, putting school districts between a rock and a hard place.
“A school transportation’s budget was $2 million, and now it goes to $5 million?” he asked. “The way that I understand state reimbursement is that the district has to fund that $5 million, and then at the end of the year they get reimbursed by the state. This [is] the biggest elephant in the room that’s not addressed.”
Lobbyist Claridge said the industry has consistently told state leaders that fully funding the transition, “covering the billions required for new buses, charging infrastructure and power grid capacity,” he shared, is essential if New York is to convert what is “arguably the largest land-based mass transit system in the nation.”
Without that, he warned, the mandate risks outpacing realistic district budgets.
Another issue is the additional parking space needed for ESBs based on charging needs. Berlin said the NYCSBUS yard would need to be 25-percent larger to park ESBs with traditional bollards and in-ground chargers.
“That is certainly an issue for us. It is an additional cost of these vehicles,” he said. “It requires more parking, which is more space, and you know in New York City that’s expensive.”
He added NYCBUS has considered overhead chargers, portable charger carts and even induction or wireless charging.
So far, NYSERDA administers $500 million from the state Bond Act through the New York School Bus Incentive Program, with another $100 million added in the state budget, for a total of $600 million earmarked specifically for electric school buses and associated infrastructure.
Disa said that when NYSERDA incentives are combined with State Education Department aid formulas, “for a lot of districts…inclusive of the charging costs, it can be the equivalent, or even it can be cheaper to acquire an electric school bus than a diesel or combustion bus right now,” with no additional local tax impact.
Still, those funds represent the early days of a far longer and more expensive transition. With roughly 50,000 school buses operating statewide, and only a fraction on the road being electric or in the pipeline, tens of thousands of vehicles will still need to be replaced by 2040. Claridge argued that even with the extension, “meeting these goals will ultimately require additional time, state investment and flexibility.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce the return of the Clean School Bus Program by next month. Nearly $2.5 billion must still be awarded nationwide. How much will go to New York school districts and bus companies remains to be seen.
Three electric school buses operated by school bus contractor Logan Bus in New York City.
Utilities and Infrastructure: ‘Early and Often’ Engagement
Beyond fleet costs, infrastructure and utility partnerships may pose the steepest near-term challenges for school districts and contractors.
“One of the critical elements that distinguish an electric school bus deployment compared to a traditional combustion bus is you do have to have a couple new stakeholders in the room, and one of those is your electric utility,” Disa said. “We recommend until we’re blue in the face that you’ve got to start talking to your electric utility early and often.”
Through NYSERDA-funded fleet electrification plans, school districts like Naples CSD are working with engineering firms to assess route energy needs, depot capacity, interconnection timelines and likely utility bill impacts. Disa said many districts currently have enough available capacity to support at least a few buses while longer-term upgrades are planned and financed, but those efforts take time and coordination.
Infrastructure upgrades are Naples CSD’s “biggest hurdle,” Elwell added. He said the district currently has adequate electricity for adding one more ESB to the fleet before utility provider NYSEG will need to upgrade the transmission line.
Claridge noted that utilities and the broader grid are central to whether the mandate can be implemented on the ground. “Fully transitioning [to electric buses] is impossible without adequate power grid capacity, charging infrastructure and funding,” he said.
Disa again pointed to NYSERDA’s fleet electrification plans led by consultants to help.
“These plans receive input from utilities, which can help determine infrastructure needs and next steps,” he explained.
For example, First Student announced Tuesday it is partnering with Con Edison and NYSERDA to demonstrate First Charge, the school bus contractor’s above-ground charging infrastructure. The organizations claim that installation could reduce infrastructure costs by 20 percent through less construction.
First Student is adding 40 ESBs in New York and is considering expanded solar and creating a smart energy hub.
“Deploying electric school buses at scale requires more than vehicles. It requires the right infrastructure, technology and utility partnership,” said Kevin Matthews, head of electrification at First Student. “Working with Con Edison, we’ve demonstrated a more efficient approach that can help overcome some of the cost and construction challenges that have traditionally made fleet electrification difficult in dense urban environments.”
Con Ed and NYSERDA are funding the project, which includes six bus vouchers through the New York School Bus Incentive Program and four retrofit buses.
Third-Party Testing and Policy Uncertainty
Another unresolved issue is a state law passed in last year’s budget requiring independent third-party testing of electric school bus range on specific routes and under varying conditions—a provision Claridge and other stakeholders describe as “overly complex” and disconnected from market realities.
Claridge said NYSERDA “continues to grapple with the implementation of this overly complex legislation,” and that the working group tasked with developing a regulatory framework “appears to have stalled” due to the law’s lack of clarity and practicality. He characterized the agency as “attempting to fit a square peg into a round hole.”
Disa said NYSERDA is using empirical fleet data and route planning results to answer the core questions lawmakers raised, such as how climate and terrain affect electric range. He noted NYSERDA convened a working group of industry stakeholders last September to help identify information that could benefit school bus operators and support industry stakeholders in finding their own paths to compliance.
‘Not a Time to Sit Back and Wait’
Everyone agrees that, despite the five-year extension, school districts cannot afford to wait.
Claridge emphasized that while the electric school bus mandate “has clear value,” the current policy framework “requires revision” to create space for innovation and realistic funding mechanisms.
Disa framed the extension as an opportunity for districts to move from planning to pilots and then to scale deployments, not as a pause button.
“Even though there is some extra time … it’s not a time to sit back and wait for years to elapse,” he said.
Districts that haven’t started a fleet plan should begin now, he added, while those with plans in hand should work with NYSERDA to get their first buses on the road and then scale up.
NYAPT’s Christopher said two important challenges remain.
“School districts vote on their budgets here, so regardless of the state mandates, if local district residents say no, buses are not purchased. This remains unresolved to date, putting a district in an untenable situation,” he explained. “Secondly, we have multiple utility companies operating in the state, and they all do business differently. It’s difficult for a school district or NYERSDA, for that matter, to sort through all the different rules and processes each utility follows in order to build out infrastructure.
“There needs to be more coordination and more attention to districts that need infrastructure built out if the mandate holds in five years,” he continued. “Districts need certainty from utilities regarding costs and timelines to secure voter approval and funding. It’s complicated to say the least.”
We discuss the postponement of the New York state electric mandate, feedback on the annual NASDPTS illegal passing survey, the impact of Daylight Savings Time conversations on students, and accolades for former STN Transportation Director of the Year Teresa Fleming of the School District of Philadelphia at Zum’s Mobility Summit.
See how mentorship and teamwork star in the noteworthy career of Sandy Dillman, a longtime school transportation director and certified driver trainer who was named the 2026 Peter J. Grandolfo Memorial Award of Excellence winner at STN EXPO West last month.
We analyze the conversations at the National School Transportation Association’s annual convention, an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study on autonomous vehicle safety, and how student transporters can respond to the evolving trends of AI and new technology.
Cameron Wood, the lead electric vehicle performance analyst for school bus contractor Student Transportation of America, shares how his technical background led him to brainstorm an EV charging solution and accept the Innovator of the Year award at STN EXPO West this month.
Login
