Transportation Vendors Report Card

As part of the New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) ongoing efforts to provide more transparency and visibility for families and the public, we have developed the first iteration of the Transportation Vendor Report Card. This data highlights vendor performance, notes areas of improvement, and identifies corrective action efforts underway to address service issues.  This report card pertains exclusively to school bus vendors serving students in grades K-12. 

September 2025 - January 2026

Legend

• OPT PR = OPT Performance Review
• NI = Needs Improvement
• ME = Meets Expectations
• EE = Exceeds Expectations
• N/A = Not Applicable

Transportation Vendors Report Card

Data Dictionary

Explanation of Terms

Overall Level/ Standing: Score assigned to each metric based on the approved rubric; may display on report as "Standing".

Route Subscription: Aggregate percentage of active AM/PM trips subscribed to in the Driver App. This report provides a vendor-level view of VIA adoption across school bus routes for the reporting period. It summarizes the total number of active AM and PM routes assigned to each vendor and the percentage of those routes that were subscribed too. Vendors are ranked based on their overall AM & PM subscription performance to support monitoring, vendor engagement, and operational oversight.

Driver Capacity: Percentage of a vendor's certified driver capacity. This report provides a snapshot of driver staffing coverage relative to active school-age routes for each transportation vendor. The report evaluates whether vendors have sufficient driver capacity to support their assigned routes and highlights potential staffing risks (under-coverage) or operational buffers (surplus coverage). Given the national bus driver shortage, as well as the increase in the overall numbers of students requiring busing, we remain short of the number of drivers required to serve all eligible students.

• The overall number of students requiring busing has increased dramatically over the past three years, particularly for students with IEPs requiring busing, students residing in temporary housing, and students placed in foster care.  These students receive service on "curb-to-school" (CTS) routes that pick them up at the nearest curb to their home and transport them to school.  For the first day of school in September 2023, we had 5,627 CTS routes that served a total of 58,741 students.  As of 5/4/2026, there are 6,260 CTS routes serving a total of 69,621 students.  This represents an 11.25% increase in routes and an 18.52% increase in students in the last three years alone.  
• The demand from some of our most vulnerable students is rising sharply as well: students in temporary housing and foster care relying on yellow bus service have grown from 4,936 students in school year 2022-2023 to 6,705 in school year 2024-2025; an increase of approximately 36%.  
• As of 5/19/2026, 224 CTS routes with 1322 students assigned to them are without drivers.  These students have been provided with pre-paid rideshare while we await the hiring of more school bus drivers. Our bus companies have been engaged in aggressive bus driver recruiting efforts.   We look forward to further collaboration with our bus companies to devise recruiting strategies that meet the needs of our students.  
• The number of stop-to-school students, eligible for busing through grade and distance from home to school, using busing has remained relatively stable with ~2130 routes serving ~70,000 students.   

Fleet Vintage Average: Average age of active in-service vehicles a vendor has. This report provides a snapshot of the active school bus fleet across transportation vendors, including route coverage, in-service and spare vehicles, and average vehicle age relative to the target benchmark of 12 years or newer. Average fleet ages range from 7.8 years to 12.2 years, indicating a generally modernized fleet across the system.

Breakdown History: Rate of vehicle breakdowns normalized to service volume. This report compares vendors on vehicle breakdown performance normalized by service volume, using Breakdowns per Route Day (%) to account for differences in route scale. This metric does not by itself explain why breakdowns occurred (maintenance, age of fleet, route length, terrain, weather, operator practices, etc.). Pair with fleet age, spare ratio, and incident reason codes when available.

Accident History: Count of accidents the vendor had during the timeframe. The report tracks total accidents to date and calculates an accident rate based on total route days, allowing for fair comparisons across vendors with varying fleet sizes and service levels. This metric does not by itself explain why accidents occurred, the type of accident (bus made contact with a vehicle's mirror or bus collided with another vehicle), nor does it confirm if the vendor's employee was at fault.                                                   

Violation History: Percentage of violations assessed per route day. This report provides a vendor-level view of transportation compliance performance by measuring violations relative to operational volume. It standardizes comparison across vendors by normalizing total violations against total route days, allowing leadership to identify both high-performing vendors and those requiring corrective attention.

GPS Safety Score: Vendor's GPS safety score based on driving behavior and GPS safety indicators. This report provides a comparative view of vendor driving behavior and safety performance using telematics data captured through the Geotab system. The report aggregates vehicle activity across each vendor’s active fleet for the fiscal year-to-date period and evaluates performance across key safety indicators, including acceleration, braking, cornering, seatbelt usage, and speeding behaviors. Each vendor is assigned an overall total score, which reflects performance across weighted GPS safety metrics, along with a standing that supports vendor monitoring, safety review, and operational oversight.

What's to Come!

To continue our efforts in transparency and visibility this is the first iteration of the Vendor Report Card. We will be adding additional performance metrics such as:  

• Service Incidents
• Inspection Data
• On-Time Performance
• Vendor Call Center Metrics

To provide feedback or obtain support with navigating the Vendor Report card, please contact busvendorscorecard@schools.nyc.gov.