BusTalk

thehartfordboy · Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:48 pm Post subject: Public vs Private

Today is my first day back to school. Big Whoop. My school had an old rented building that couldn't fit us. Glad for the new school. Anyways, my old school building, we had to walk from the curb to the building, not that far of a walk though. Now as we moved to our new building, we had a new School Tripper route. As we got to the school, I noticed the bus pulled right up to the school building (WTF!!!). I can dig it but does this violates any laws about public versus private, even though there's a dead end and this is the only way to turn around the bus?

timecruncher · Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 7:19 am Post subject:

Um, maybe. If it is a public transit authority, and the trip is "open to the public," with a published schedule, it is probably legal.

Remember, the school is a public entity as well.

timecruncher

ripta42 · Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 7:49 am Post subject:

49 CFR 605.3(b) Definitions

Tripper service means regularly scheduled mass transportation service which is open to the public, and which is designed or modified to accommodate the needs of school students and personnel, using various fare collections or subsidy systems. Buses used in tripper service must be clearly marked as open to the public and may not carry designations such as “school bus” or “school special”. These buses may stop only at a grantee or operator's regular service stop. All routes traveled by tripper buses must be within a grantee's or operator's regular route service as indicated in their published route schedules.

49 CFR 605.13 Tripper Service

The prohibition against the use of buses, facilities and equipment funded under the Acts shall not apply to tripper service.

ripta42 · Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 7:50 am Post subject:

Basically, if it's a modification of an existing route, it's OK, but if it's an entirely new route designed particularly to serve the school, it may be up to challenge under 49 CFR 605.

thehartfordboy · Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 8:20 pm Post subject:

timecruncher · Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 7:05 am Post subject:

It may operate that way, but the driver is actually supposed to pick up and discharge passengers along the entire route just as if it were regular service. That's the point of the regulation!

timecruncher

RailBus63 · Moderator Joined: 16 Apr 2007 Posts: 1063

Cliff, as a runcutter, are school trippers a pain to schedule? I would assume so, given that the morning trips operate during what is typically the peak ridership period of the day in most cities.

Thanks to the FTA, school trippers have become a lot more transparent in recent years. Here in Syracuse, Centro all but hid its schedules for these runs until last year (there was a note on the regular schedules advising that additional service was operated to certain neighborhoods, but you had to call Centro to obtain any details). The authority now publishes 'Extra' schedules for school trips and uses 900-series route numbers that are an offshoot of the system's regular route numbers, but most of the trips are of little use to anyone but a student traveling to a particular school.

Jim

ripta42 · Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:43 am Post subject:

RIPTA publishes school trips on its regular timetables, with the caveat "operates only on days [City/Town] schools are in session." I usually end up on a tripper in the morning.

Dieseljim · Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:56 am Post subject: School Trippers

The NFTA has published separate timetables for these routes, all numbered in the 100-120 series specifically for these routes which are open to the public as well as the school students. Regional Transit Service in Rochester,NY recently solved the problem that got them into hotwater with the FTA by modifying certain routes to not only through route pairs of routes and creating semi-express runs as the bus goes from one route to another, thus eliminating the need to transfer from one bus to another to finish a trip. Examples are 8-Chili/East Main becomes 8X and some buses on it come from other routes and travel part of the way via the Inner Loop to go from one route to the other, thus giving through passengers a one seat ride. I have a 2006 set of timetables with this change implemented. Hopefully both the FTA and the students who use RTS buses are kept happy. The Rochester City School District felt that FIRST STUDENT (LAIDLAW) could not meet the schedules required of them, since First Student operates primarily in the Suburbs. There is the logic that since an RTS bus is going that way anyway, why not let the students at a given school use it to get to and from home or school as the case may be.

timecruncher · Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 11:44 am Post subject:

Indeed, publishing the trips in a timetable - preferably a regular service schedule, is the way to appease the FTA in most cases. Their inspectors are not above trying to board one of the special buses to see if the service is actually "open to the public," though.

And we know how accomodating some bus operators can be...

Tripper work, be it for schools or for regular service during peak hours, makes for ugly runcuts. Transit has lived with this situation for many, many years, and there isn't much we can do about it. It is the reason that transit is so costly to operate in many cities -- it is so labor intensive.

timecruncher

ripta42 · Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 2:45 pm Post subject:

RailBus63 · Moderator Joined: 16 Apr 2007 Posts: 1063

timecruncher · Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 7:25 pm Post subject:

Good heavens! As if any normal person would try to untangle that spaghetti-bowl of a map!

Oh well - if it keeps the Feds happy...

timecruncher

HwyHaulier · Joined: 16 Dec 2007 Posts: 932 Location: Harford County, MD

Dieseljim · Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 1:47 pm Post subject: Trippers Idea from Marion Barry?

I wonder if the FTA's idea for that regulation about tripper service came from Washington DC's Marion Barry? Now THERE'S a nutcase if there ever was one.