Overview
Once you’ve built an internal project team, you should reach out to other stakeholders who will need to be involved in project implementation or who will be impacted by fleet electrification, including district staff, students, parents and caregivers, teachers, drivers and maintenance workers and their unions, electric utilities, neighborhoods near bus depots and the broader community.
Understanding and being responsive to stakeholder needs will be key to centering equity in your fleet transition. Perhaps the most important stakeholder to engage as soon as possible will be your electric utility, as they will be essential to your project success.
Engaging stakeholders with on-the-ground expertise, particularly groups and individuals that have been historically excluded from planning processes, can improve projects by identifying barriers and blind spots early in the process. Substantive and consistent community engagement can also improve project buy-in and long-term success.
While some of the most empowering forms of community engagement allow communities to co-create projects, working closely with communities throughout the planning and implementation phases builds trust, increases investment and produces creative solutions.
As you build relationships, you can work together to identify the most effective mechanisms for engagement. Some groups will be more receptive to short surveys and online engagement, others may value one-on-one conversations or being in the room during the planning process. Regardless of the stakeholder, consistent follow-up to share results and explain how their input impacts the project is important.
Things to do:
- Identify internal and external stakeholders and their roles
- Establish a relationship with your electric utility
- Reach out to your school district’s communications team
- Develop communications materials and FAQs to help guide discussions
- Hold preliminary conversations to introduce stakeholders to your electric school bus project, understand their needs and concerns and identify challenges and opportunities
- Assess how and when to involve different stakeholders going forward
Questions to consider:
- Who from within school district staff might be impacted, intentionally or unintentionally, and how? What benefits can fleet electrification provide to this group?
- Who from within the school community might be impacted, intentionally or unintentionally, and how? What benefits can fleet electrification provide to this group?
- Who from within the broader community or local neighborhoods might be impacted, intentionally or unintentionally, and how? What benefits can fleet electrification provide to this group?
- Who from your electric utility should be involved? What benefits can fleet electrification provide to your electric utility?
- When and how does each of the above groups need to be included throughout the process?
- How might fleet electrification connect to city/county climate and resilience planning?
- How might you partner with others in your area who are also electrifying their fleets (school districts, transit agencies, city governments, etc.)?
Potential stakeholders:
- District transportation director
- District superintendent
- District communications staff
- Electric utility representative
- Bus drivers, maintenance workers and associated union representatives
- Community-based organizations, including environmental organizations, environmental justice organizations and organizations that serve the populations around bus depot locations
- Parents and organizations representing their voices
- Students and organizations representing their voices
- Teachers and organizations representing their voices
Resources:
- Why Electric School Buses? – VEIC: A downloadable slide deck pre-filled with data and talking points for pitching an electric school bus project.
- Starting Off Right: A Community-First New Mobility Playbook – New Urban Mobility Alliance: This toolkit helps transportation professionals integrate new mobility services into existing transportation systems with a community-first approach.
- Changing Power Dynamics among Researchers, Local Governments, and Community Members: A Community Engagement and Racial Equity Guidebook – Urban Institute: This toolkit highlights community-based approaches that can catalyze equitable public policy, programs and investments by centering a community’s expertise.
- Working with Your Utility to Electrify Your School Bus Fleet – VEIC: This short resource helps school districts understand how and why to work with their electric utility on fleet electrification.
- Clean Bus Guide – New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund: A guidebook of information about community-wide benefits of electric school buses, case studies, and stakeholders that you might want to engage.
- State Electric School Bus Campaigns – Alliance for Electric School Buses: Find potential community partners through the Alliance’s state map.