Late/Cancelled Bus Notifications
CCRCE posts late and cancelled bus information on the BusPlanner web page and through BusPlanner Alerts.
- With BusPlanner Alerts, you ONLY receive an email or text if the bus your child is assigned to has a delay or cancellation. It is no longer for the entire school.
- Please log in to your account and be familiar with your child’s route numbers. Remember there could be separate bus route number for the morning and afternoon routes.
For any families with bus students who have yet to sign up for BusPlanner Alerts and want to receive notifications:
- First, set up a BusPlanner Web account if you have not already done so.
- Ensure your children are listed as Students in their account (use “Add Student” button if not), and that the information for both am and pm bus routes is listed for your students.
- Ensure the correct email address is set up in your account. If you are not receiving emails, but signed up, please check your junk mail for the notification emails.
- Opt-in to receive text messaging, if you would like, by clicking on My Account under the Parent Drop down menu. You can add multiple phone numbers to receive these alerts.
If you have any questions regarding the new Alert system, please email [email protected].
Why is my bus late or cancelled?
We recognize that bus delays and cancellation cause disruption to family schedules, and please know we are working to limit delays as much as possible. CCRCE is experiencing a bus driver shortage similar to other sectors also feeling labour shortages.
Although we have full time drivers, we have limited casual bus drivers. This means when a driver is sick or off work for personal reasons we have limited options to back-fill drivers. This challenge is across the CCRCE region.
When a driver is not available for a bus run, the transportation team reviews the impacted areas and works hard to impact the least number of students possible. For example, we can employ the following strategies to reduce impact, including the following:
- We can ask drivers to double-up a run, and cover off a route where a driver is sick
- We can consolidate two bus runs into one, if space is available and the routes are close to one another
Please know, we are actively attempting to recruit more drivers. Some of the actions we have taken include:
- Actively reaching out to encourage new recruits via traditional media, social media and web-based ads.
- Transferring licensed drivers from other roles/departments within CCRCE.
- Reaching out to outside busing contractors.
- Connecting with recent retirees and past spare drivers.
- Sharing drivers from our other families of schools as available.
- Moving drivers around to reduce the impact on one particular run if that driver is off for multiple days.
- Recruiting at local job fairs.
We are urgently looking to hire bus drivers. If anyone is interested, please apply online at https://www.ccrce.ca/work_with_us or call (902) 897-8900.