Boston Public Schools fined school bus provider Transdev over $400,000 for late or missed service during the spring semester, marking its first major crackdown on a busing partner that has been dogged by years of concerns over safety and chronic lateness.
Transdev, a large multi-national transport company based in France, racked up $400,500 in fines for improperly servicing routes 1,263 times since March, district data show.
The fines come even as Transdev had improved its overall performance during the school year, scoring its highest morning on-time performance in four years. Afternoon service likewise rebounded 3.5 percentage points last year from the year before, according to district data.
But despite more coming on time, some buses still came more than an hour late, or not at all.
In May, nearly 500 of these “blown trips,” triggered $184,000 in damages, even as combined on-time percentages hit 90 percent that month.
The fines, first reported by WBUR in April and again last week, have led parents and local officials to call for the state to increase its oversight of Massachusetts’ largest school district, just years after local officials narrowly averted a state takeover of BPS following reports of “entrenched dysfunction,” extending from staffing issues to the districts’ tardy buses.
That compromise created a remedial improvement agreement with the district, which the state let expire last summer even as the city failed to hit other goals beyond reliable buses, including improving special education and ESL programs.
Cheryl Buckman, a BPS parent and advocate, created a petition this week calling for the state to again intervene on busing and for BPS to consider terminating service with the company, which has been its sole busing provider since 2013.
“Why weren’t [these] guys fined a long time ago?” said Buckman, whose petition on Wednesday had 20 signatures. “I believe it’s time to drop the hammer on them.”
Per their contract, the district can charge Transdev $500 for any no-show or overly late trips, district transportation director Daniel Rosengard told City Council members in a March session discussing bus lateness. Transdev can also secure bonuses by being on-time.
Using this price calculation, the district likely left millions on the table by not enforcing fines across previous years.
Last fiscal year, BPS allocated $189 million to transportation, at least $21 million of which went directly to Transdev for management expenses, Rosengard told the Council members.
Following ramped up enforcement, Transdev’s end to last school year was among its strongest ever.
In June, the company achieved a month of bus service that was on time 95 percent of mornings, for the first time satisfying the minimum target BPS promised state officials they would realize along all routes in their now-expired improvement agreement from 2022.
June also had the smallest number of blown trips at 197. For reference, district buses complete roughly 3,000 total routes each school day, according to a 2025 progress report.
In a statement, Transdev spokesperson Mischa Wanek-Libman said the company has made various improvements over the past year, including hiring 40 additional drivers and training 750 drivers in safety and defensive driving courses.
“While we recognize there is more work to do, these improvements reflect our continued investment in safety, service, and accountability,” Wanek-Libman said.
In a statement Monday, a district spokesperson said the fines “address an uptick we were seeing in the number of uncovered trips even as overall [on-time performance] was continuing to improve.”
But some in the community said they haven’t felt like performance is improving, and see the fines as proof of that.
Theresa Delehanty, 66, who helps two of her elementary-age grandchildren catch the bus in South Boston each morning, said the bus didn’t arrive at all five times last school year, more than ever before.
Transdev service began to seriously regress around last December, necessitating the start of fines, Rosengard also told city councilors in March.
In an open letter to state education officials published Friday, City Councilor-At-Large Erin Murphy expressed frustration with BPS officials.
She said she has repeatedly received the same kind of “local assurances,” about transportation but without “sufficient answers and meaningful change,” and now wants the state to do its own review.
“The need for these fines,” Murphy added, “confirms that the district and its contractor are still failing to meet basic expectations.”
In a statement on Monday, a district spokesperson wrote that BPS, “continues to work closely with Transdev to ensure that during the 2026-27 school year we build on the record high on-time performance seen this past school year.”
Addressing why fines only began this year, the spokesperson said that “while our experience has shown that non-performance damages are not always the most effective tool at our disposal, we use them strategically when necessary to maintain accountability.”
So far, “this targeted use of damages” had led to “a significant reduction in uncovered trips,” the spokesperson added.
The district’s busing protocols and its relationship with Transdev have come under intensified scrutiny over the last year, following the death of Lens Arthur Joseph, a 5-year-old Hyde Park student who was struck by Transdev driver Jean Charles shortly after afternoon drop-off in April 2025. It was later revealed that Charles, who tried to flee the scene of the crash, was also driving with an expired state certification.
A WBUR and ProPublica report released last month exposed further issues at Transdev. According to their investigation the company did not properly identify its role in 42 fatal crashes, including the one that killed Joseph, in federal databases.
In Boston alone, they identified 71 serious school bus crashes involving the company which weren’t reported using its name.
An independent probe last year revealed a collective failure by BPS and Transdev to properly document and track training requirements and accident reports.
New safety recommendations were adopted at the start of last school year, but parents like Buckman said they don’t trust that Transdev is being held accountable.
“Sorry just does not cut it anymore,” she added. “There is [a] huge fracture between BPS families and BPS itself.”
BPS is also Transdev’s only school bus client, and the company was the only bidder for the district’s most recent five-year busing contract, signed in 2023.
According to a district spokesperson, multiple vendors were invited to bid in 2021, but only Transdev submitted an offer.
First Student, which provided district busing before Transdev, was also plagued by chronic delay issues. In 2012, the Globe reported 37 percent of its buses were arriving up to an hour late and the firm was fined $800,000 as a result.
Bryan Hecht can be reached at bryan.hecht@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram @bhechtjournalism.