Columbia Transit Advisory Commission discusses bus driver shortages
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The City of Columbia Public Transit Advisory Commission discussed public transit driver shortages and how it may affect bus routes availability Tuesday evening.
John Ogan, public information specialist with the City of Columbia Public Works, said the city is down 11 full-time and seven part-time drivers, which represents nearly 40% of the cities operator staff. Drivers are all able to work fixed routes such as paratransit and MU campus bus lines.
Ogan said there is not a shortage on any particular aspect of bus services.
Ogan said the city does publicize job openings online and on social media, but there are not many applicants.
"Our main issue is that we do not get man applicants and that many of them either do not qualify or are unable to wait through the duration of the hiring process, which can take several weeks," Ogan said.
Ogan said there are FTA requirements for bus drivers that include physical requirements and a background check that can cause delays in the hiring process.
"Many of the applicants prior to employers respond slowly to our requests for background checks, which adds time to the application process," Ogan said.
Ogan said some of the actions that the city takes to help the hiring situation is including providing CDL training.
"We are able to take someone with no bus driving experience and help them get their commercial driver's license, their airbrake requirement, and their passenger endorsement requirement," Ogan said.
Ogan said the city is looking into every possible solution, including working with Missouri Public Transit Association in order to help train students in the community college system to get their CDLs and possibly work for the city part-time.
OATS Transit is also short drivers statewide and has about 100 openings right now throughout 87 counties.
A complete list of openings on the OATS website.
Jill Stedem, administrative & development director at OATS, said OATS is a non-profit organization, and competing with large for-profit companies is very challenging.
Stedem said its driver openings are often attractive to people who like to give back to their community by helping people.
When asked about gas prices, Stedem said gas price increases do affect the company. For every 10 cent increase in gas, it costs an additional $10,000 in expenses every month. As a company, OATS buys roughly 4 million gallons of gas each year.
