The Hawaii Department of Education is launching a pilot program that will allow high school students to ride the bus for free to mitigate the impact of the school bus driver shortage, according to a news release.

The new program called EXPRESS, which stands for Expanding Ridership to Educate Students in School, will be available in all four counties. 

The national school bus driver shortage is another side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and has impacted Hawaii, especially within rural communities. 

The new program is intended to increase high school student ridership on county buses so that underutilized school buses can be used to restore canceled and consolidated routes. 

“We started this school year short roughly 90 bus drivers and every bus we can reassign will help us to prioritize impacted routes at our elementary and intermediate schools,” Superintendent Keith Hayashi said in the news release. 

The new program will benefit more than 21,000 students who are currently ineligible for school bus services because they live within a walkable distance of their school. 

"Approximately 6,000 high school students currently use school bus service to get to and from school statewide,” Student Transportation Services Administrator Emily Evans said in the news release. “Students who choose to participate in EXPRESS gain access to a means of transportation that isn't limited to school transportation; they are free to use their pass as needed.” 

Students who would like to enroll in the program and who have an active HIDOE student ID number may sign up online. For approved students, county bus passes will be distributed through their school. Safety tips for public transportation can be found here.  

Michelle Broder Van Dyke covers the Hawaiian Islands for Spectrum News Hawaii.