Bus Policy:
Bus students in the City of Martensville will not receive a phone call from the bus driver to announce bus cancellations due to extreme weather conditions.
Martensville Bus cancellation announcements:
There have also been some changes to the communication tools that PSSD uses to keep families
informed of alterations to regular bus routes:
- Run status, including cancellations and delays, will continue to be posted on the Prairie Spirit
website. Updates can be found by clicking here: Home Page – BusPlanner Web
(mybusplanner.ca), then “View Alerts” (top of page). - Communications regarding run status will occur via the Swift K-12 tool. This provides
Transportation staff with a tool to communicate with families via text messages, email, and
voice messages, without families needing to sign up for notifications in a separate app.
2023/24. - The MyStop app has been discontinued; as a result, the live “bus location” features will no
longer be available. - Rural route drivers will continue to communicate with parents directly, as in previous years.
- We locally refer to our urban buses by colour so that they are easily identifiable by all children,
but the BusPlanner Web is not able to currently report alerts by the colour designation – only
the assigned route number. To reduce confusion with notifications we want to highlight that
bus route numbers are indicated on each bus pass. You may also refer to the chart below that
shows buses by route and colour designation.
Buses in Prairie Spirit School Division will be cancelled when the temperature reaches -40 degrees Celsius or -45 degrees Celsius with the windchill at 6:00am (as reported by Environment Canada at www.weatheroffice.gc.ca). (Note: the AP previously stated buses were cancelled when the
temperature was -40 degrees Celsius with windchill)
A bus route that is cancelled in the morning due to extreme cold will run in the afternoon, if conditions have improved to warmer than -40 degrees Celsius (combined temperature/windchill) at 12 noon. In the past, if a bus route was cancelled in the morning due to cold weather, it was automatically cancelled for the entire day.
Buses are not to operate if weather conditions such as freezing rain, dense fog, heavy rain, or severe dust storms impair visibility or otherwise cause dangerous travel conditions.
Wheelchair lift equipment will not operate if combined temperature/windchill factors are at or below -35 degrees Celsius at 6:00am. Drivers must contact the student’s family if the lift equipment is not operating. The bus will pick up the student in the afternoon if the combined temperature is above -35 degrees Celsius at 12:00 noon. The driver will contact the student’s family if the lift equipment is operating for the afternoon route.
The complete Severe Weather policy (AP 805) can be found under Administrative Policies and Procedures at http://www.spiritsd.ca/schoolboard/policies.asp.