ALMA, Ark. — The 2023-2024 school year was the first that the Alma School District utilized electric buses as part of its fleet, and they continue to use them for students currently enrolled in the district’s summer programs.
One of the few districts in the state to have such vehicles, Transportation Director for Alma School District Jason Rutherford said this first year using their eight new buses has been a positive experience.
“We use them on long routes, on dirt pavement,” Rutherford said. “I intentionally placed them in every kind of environment just to see how they would do, and we've been really pleased.”
Rutherford added that even on some of the district’s longest routes, the buses come back with at least 50% of the battery life still available.
Last year, the district received a $3 million dollar grant as part of the Advanced Bus and Clean (ABC) Transportation Program through the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.
"We were finally awarded that money and it took a while to get the infrastructure built," Rutherford said.
According to Rutherford, the plan required routing power lines underground and installing power boxes and transformers.
The buses can hold up to 77 students, and Rutherford said it helps in reducing both noise and emissions pollution. Rutherford added the reduced noise from the buses helps in chaperoning the students on board.
“It's actually made taking care of students on the bus easier because of the noise level,” Rutherford said. “We can hear them, and they know that we can hear them, and they talk in a quieter voice because they don't want us hearing what they're saying, and that's good."
Rutherford said the buses cost around $417,000 apiece. He added that the electric buses come equipped with air conditioning, something most of the other 16 buses in their possession do not have.
In choosing to use these vehicles, Rutherford said student safety was of the utmost importance.
"We believe in safety, and we believe in the safety of these buses,” Rutherford said. “And if it wasn't that way, we wouldn't have them.”
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