Montreal school bus operators, driving schools asking province for help at the pumps

The surge in gas prices is putting a huge dent into the bottom line of school bus companies in Montreal.

While fuel prices hover around the $2/litre mark, drivers are feeling some pain when they need to fill up their cars, but for school bus company owner Andrew Jones, it’s putting a huge dent into his bottom line.

“We’re living the same stresses as everybody else at the tank,” he said. “Our busses are costing us around 35 to 40 per cent more to fuel up,” he said.

Jones, who owns and operates Autobus Beaconsfield and Transport Scolaire Elite, said a quarter of his fleet is now electric, but the majority still requires diesel fuel.

“We started the month at around $1.50 a litre for diesel and there were some instances that it went all the way up to $2.22 a litre, in the span of three weeks.”

Unlike other transportation operators, they are unable to implement a fuel surcharge, to pass along the extra costs.

“School bus operators are on fixed contracts,” said Jones. “So our contracts were signed four years ago for a six-year term.”

In the past, Jones said the province has offered subsidies for such unforeseen expenses, but its new policy only supports electric vehicles. Jones said the policy doesn’t take into the account the reality for operators and the much higher costs to own, insure and repair electric buses.

“We’re all for trying to transition to electric buses,” he said. “But in the meantime, our diesels still need to be on the road for the short to medium term.”

School bus operators aren’t the only ones appealing to Quebec for relief from high gas prices. The association representing the province’s driving schools, the Association des ecoles de conduite du Quebec A.E.C.Q, has been calling on the government to remove its cap on the cost of driving lessons.

Currently, the fee for Class 5 driving licence cannot exceed $1,130, which the A.E.C.Q says does not take into account the rising costs of fuel, insurance and vehicle repairs.

Morty Preisler, owner of Morty’s Driving School, said it’s been difficult to deal with the extra fuel charges for his 23 vehicles on the road.

“We cannot increase our prices to basically cover the extra cost,” he said. “So, at this time we are absorbing it.”

Preisler said they are slowly adding some electric vehicles to their fleet, but he’s hopeful that the current fuel crisis will only be temporary, adding that he started his business during the energy crisis in the 1970s.

“Since 1977, we’ve seen these things happen on and off and, eventually, things come back to normal. So we’ll see.”