“There are 8,000 school bus drivers missing for the start of the school year. » The cry of alarm uttered in June by the National Federation of Passenger Transport (FNTV) made the rounds of the media and raised concerns. Will the students run out of coaches? Will parents have to disrupt their own schedule to get their children to school?
The weeks go by, the start of the school year approaches, the panic grows. “About 20% of students transported risk not having coaches at the start of the school year”, says Anne-Gaëlle Simon, Deputy General Delegate at the FNTV.
If the local authorities have been anticipating the problem for months, the organization of the start of the school year is not yet complete. “It’s a work of ultra-proximity, done with the teeth, impossible to implement in a generalized way”, according Regions of France, the institution that represents them.
For the moment, no one mentions the track of deletions of lines, the school remains a ” priority “. At worst, the regions contacted by The world consider merging lines or adapting timetables in September “if the situation requires it”. Last resort solutions that could disrupt the functioning of schools. “Organizing a high school according to transport problems is always complicated”, recalls Florent Martin, principal of a comprehensive high school in Argelès-sur-Mer (Pyrénées-Orientales), who fears seeing his schedules upset at the last minute.
A school bus in Normandy
The shortage affects the entire territory. Each region has a more or less significant shortage of staff. In Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, we are looking for 1,000 drivers. In Occitania, no less than 550. In Hauts-de-France and Pays de la Loire, 400 are missing.
Despite these alarming figures, the regional councils – holders of the “transport” competence since the start of the 2019 school year – want to be reassuring because the massive recruitment campaigns are starting to bear fruit. More than 300 bus drivers were hired this summer in Normandy, reducing the region’s deficit to 70 vacant positions. Carole Delga, the socialist president of the Occitanie region, promised that “the service will be provided under normal conditions from September” thanks to the recruitment of 300 drivers. With 150 vacancies, New Aquitaine recognizes a tense situation “without being catastrophic”. To enlist, the regions have gone into overdrive: major communication operations, attractiveness allowances, fully funded training, salary increases of 5%, etc.
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