OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. – Osceola County students heading back to school this year will benefit from a new transportation hub designed to get them to class faster and keep the drivers who take them there happy.
The School District of Osceola County opened its new Transportation and Operations Facility on the west side of the county. The location was a strategic choice as the region continues to see rapid population growth.
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“There’s approximately 100 routes that are going to be coming out of this facility,” Director of Transportation Services for the School District of Osceola County Orville Watson said.
The facility sits on 53 acres and can hold up to 200 buses, giving the district room to expand its fleet as the county grows.
“We have a large fleet facility here, a full fleet facility, office space. We have meeting rooms. We have a training facility. We even have a training pad where we can actually do certified, CDL training for our drivers and attendants here and our drivers here,” Watson said.
Having a fully equipped maintenance facility on-site means mechanics can handle both minor and major repairs without sending buses to their central transportation facility in another part of the county.
“So, there’s no need anymore to go on that side of the town,” Watson said.
“This allows us to place this facility more in a central area so we can get the buses closer to where they needed to be as far as homes and stops and schools to minimize that travel time.”
Superintendent Dr. Mark Shanoff toured the facility and emphasized that the district intentionally designed the space with drivers in mind.
“We’ve been able to operationalize routing, and really make it that much more efficient,” Shanoff said.
Shanoff credits the employee-focused design as a key reason the district enters the new school year without any bus driver vacancies.
“One of the reasons why we don’t have any driver vacancies is because of us elevating the transportation employee experience. If you look at the break rooms that are in here, if you look at the training rooms that are in here, it really elevates what we’re expecting out of our professionals that support transportation,” Shanoff said.
The school year starts Monday.