First Student (United States)

First Student
Parent FirstGroup
Founded 1999
(through acquisition of school bus business of Ryder)
Headquarters 600 Vine Street, Ste. 1400
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
Service area United States
Service type School bus, charter service
Fleet 49,000 (March 2016)
Website www.firststudentinc.com

First Student, a division of FirstGroup America, is a brand used by the Scottish transport company FirstGroup for student transport in the United States. According to the company's website, it is the largest provider of school bus services in the United States. The company operates out of 650 locations in 39 US states and eight Canadian provinces.[1]

With a workforce of 57,000 employees and a fleet of 48,000 vehicles, First Student transports approximately 6 million students daily.[1] The company bus fleet drives over 600 million miles every year.[1] First Student is the first school bus operator to integrate Zonar, an electronic fleet-management software program, into its fleet.

Company history

First Student was created in 1999 when FirstGroup acquired the student transportation division of Ryder. During the next decade, the company expanded through the acquisition of other school bus contractors. By 2007, FirstGroup had built First Student into one of the largest school bus contractors in the United States. That year, the company acquired Laidlaw in a merger, taking over its school transportation operations. The First Student brand has since been expanded into the United Kingdom, where First Student UK provides new pupil transportation services. One bus has toured the country on trials.[2]

See also

References

Media related to First Student buses at Wikimedia Commons

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/9/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.