School Bus Fleet, 2019 Fact Book

6 SCHOOL BUS FLEET WWW SCHOOLBUSFLEET COM By James Blue General Manager PUBLISHERS PERSPECTIVE Smaller Buses Stand Out in Strong Sales Numbers SCHOOL BUS FLEET ISSN 0036 6501 USPS 483 800 is published monthly except for May by Bobit Business Media 3520 Challenger Street Torrance California 90503 1640 Periodicals postage paid at Torrance California 90503 1640 and additional mailing offices POSTMASTER Send address changes to School Bus Fleet P O Box 3312 Northbrook IL 60065 3312 Please allow 6 to 8 weeks for address changes to take effect Subscription Prices United States 25 per year Canada 30 per year Foreign 75 per year Single copy price 4 Fact Book 25 Please allow 6 to 8 weeks to receive your first issue Bobit Business Media reserves the right to refuse non qualified subscriptions Please address Editorial and Advertising correspondence to the Executive Offices at 3520 Challenger Street Torrance California 90503 1640 The contents of this publication may not be reproduced either in whole or in part without consent of Bobit Business Media All statements made although based on information believed to be reliable and accurate cannot be guaranteed and no fault or liability can be accepted for error or omission For your Information We sometimes make our subscriber information i e fax e mail or mailing address available to carefully screened organizations whose products and services may be of interest to you If you prefer not to have your information made available please write School Bus Fleet P O Box 3312 Northbrook IL 60065 3312 Year after year School Bus Fleet has reported on rising annual school bus sales numbers and 2018 was strong yet again School bus sales in the U S and Canada remain impressive Sales of Type A and Type D buses are up significantly For Type A buses the 41 spike could be attributed to increased availability of the type from the Micro Bird G5 and the Collins Low Floor bus as well as other options from Starcraft Titan and Trans Tech And the Type A boost looks to be joining a small but growing trend toward the electric fueling option The LionA from The Lion Electric Co became available to order in fall 2018 and Collins Bus Corp has plans to introduce a new electric Type A school bus The increase in Type A sales falls in line with what Steve Girardin president of Micro Bird told SBF in an interview for a story in the April 2018 issue He forecasted that more new Type A school buses would take to the road in 2018 including Micro Birds electric G5 and that the market could see an increase of up to 7 growth in 2018 As we report on pg 35 school bus sales in the U S and Canada have mostly held steady experiencing the smallest fraction of a dip The 2018 total 44381 school buses sold was down by only eight buses from 2017 s figure 44389 This is still on par with last year which brought the highest sales numbers in the industry since 2006 Tariffs on steel and other raw material price hikes in 2018 increased the cost of building school buses impacting prices toward the end of the year Blue Bird CEO Phil Horlock mentioned in an interview with SBF for the November 2018 issue that the manufacturer had to raise prices later in the year because of these costs That could potentially be a factor that impacts school bus sales in 2019 Caley Edgerly president and CEO of Thomas Built Buses also noted in a recent interview with SBF the rise in the cost of raw materials Another factor challenging significant growth he said is school transportation departments facing more budgetary restrictions and competing priorities Stay tuned for more of Edgerlys insights in an interview in the January 2019 issue One silver lining is the continued trend of alternative fuel bus purchases Blue Birds Horlock said that sales of non diesel large school buses propane compressed natural gas CNG and electric accounted for nearly 40 of the manufacturers output and he doesnt see that slowing down anytime soon That trend will only be encouraged as the 29 billion in funds from the Volkswagen VW Environmental Mitigation Trust becomes available providing a bump in sales of alternative fuel buses So far we have seen a Louisiana school district buy 10 propane buses with its share of the funds Meanwhile SBF reported on two states that earmarked significant portions of their funds to replace aging school buses Arizona plans to use two thirds of its settlement money to buy about 300 new school buses for low income communities and Michigan is putting about 20 of its share toward replacing aging diesel school buses with new diesel electric or other alternative fuel buses As we kick off 2019 it will be exciting to see more states use their VW funds to put more alternative fuel and clean diesel buses whether small or large on the road The Type A sales boost looks to be joining a small but growing trend toward the electric fueling option