Kansas City Off to a Great 2009!

Effective December 4th, 2008, Busco, Inc. purchased/acquired a motorcoach company in the Southern Region. Please join me in Welcoming Mourey Services, Inc. to the family-owned companies and welcome its former owner Ken Mourey as our new employee.

Ken will begin Monday, December 8th, working for Chuck Gunnels as our new Sales Manager/Operations Assistant. Ken brings with him a wealth of experience. “There is nothing in the company I couldn’t do or wouldn’t do,” states Ken. Ken lives in Concordia, MO, with his wife Deb and two children; a son who is a freshman in high school and daughter who is a freshman in college in Alabama.

Ken and his company are great additions to the Busco family. Congratulations to the Southern Region Team.

Arrow Stage Lines and President Elect Barack Obama

As a company, we have the opportunity to serve the government and military on a pretty regular basis. Just recently, we served Barack Obama and his family while they were doing campaign stops in Kansas City, MO. These are some great pictures taken with President Elect Barack Obama. The drivers in the pictures are Richard Rife and Gordon Griggs.

Pretty cool stuff...

Updates to Employee Website

If you have not logged on to www.buscoinc.com in a while, please do so. There have been some updates.

As many of you know, we continue to raise the bar of safety. In doing so, the recently developed safety processes have been made available on buscoinc.com for your convenience. You’ll find processes such as the Internal Insurance Certificate Request Process, and the Pre Employment Drug Screen Process, just to name a few.

We’ll try to do the best we can to inform you when a revised version is released.

You can find these processes under the “Safety” tab, and then click on “Policy and Procedures”.

We hope that you find this a useful tool in your day to day operations.

New "green" webpage

Today we launched our new "green" web page. If you get a change, check it out at http://www.arrowstagelines.com/green/index.htm

Arrow/Black Hills Stage Lines picks up passenger and express service from Denver, CO to Billings, MT.

Black Hills Stage Lines is starting passenger and express bus service from Denver, CO to Billings, MT through the basin area beginning July 8, 2008 with shuttle service to and from Cody and Powell, Wyoming as well as to and from Riverton, Wyoming. There will be depots located in Denver, Cheyenne, Wheatland, and Casper in Colorado, Shoshoni, Basin, Worland, and Lovell in Wyoming with the final destination in Billings, MT.

Black Hills Stage Lines, is a Nebraska based, family owned company that has been in business since 1962 and currently run schedule services in Nebraska, Wyoming and Colorado. All motorcoaches used on the schedule route will be provided by Arrow Stage Lines.

Olympic Transportation

Arrow Stage Lines is doing some of the transportation for the upcoming Olympic Swim Trials here in Omaha, NE. We got three buses done with a window wrap and I wanted to show all of you the final product. I think it came out really nice!

Motorcoach Idling and low Idle

As most of you know, diesel fuel costs are very high. In California, we have seen costs at over $5.00 per gallon! There are many things that we as a company are trying to do to offset fuel costs but there are two direct things that you as a driver can do to help offset these costs. The first is motorcoach idling. It is critical that you do not idle the motorcoach unless it is absolutely necessary. Depending on what motorcoach you are in and what time of the year it is, you are looking at burning 4-6 gallons per hour by just idling the motorcoach. At $5.00 a gallon that is $20.00 - $30.00 that is lost per hour just by idling. You can imagine that with 180 motorcoaches and all of the idling that takes place, there is a lot of money to be saved if we just turn the motorcoaches off. The other thing to remember is if you do need to idle, make sure that you do so on low idle.

Thanks for everything you do and for partnering with us to help offset these continual rising fuel costs.

Luke Busskohl

Arrow Stage Lines part of Green Operators Motorcoach Council

I wanted to let all of you know that Arrow Stage Lines is part of the Green Operators Motorcoach Council. In September 2007, several motorcoach owners gathered at an MCI Inaugural motorcoach Marketing Council. From that meeting, an idea grew to promote national awareness of coach travel and operators dedication to running green.

Our coaches are green by nature. We carry multiple passengers that keep numerous cars off the road. This efficiency results in a reduction of emissions and crowding of highways.

Our investment in state-of-the-art equipment and commitment to our environment must be shared with the media, civic groups and passengers. By uniting together in a grass roots organization, coach operators will benefit through national exposure to our industry, an industry that is growing and is committed to being green.

There has never been a more important or real opportunity for our industry to unite and grow by informing the traveling public of our environmental solution.

To read more about the council, please visit http://www.gocoach.org/index.htm

Diesel Fuel - Finding the Right Place to Fill Up

I was leaving the office the other day (in Omaha, NE) and came across a Gas Station that was selling Diesel fuel for $4.85 per gallon. Wow! As most of you know, the fuel costs are out of control and its affecting our business in a negative way. Fortunately, we have great people that are helping offset the addition fuel costs.

I am writing because we talked a driver the other day that filled up a tank in the Chicago area for $5.00 a gallon. I know that there are places in the US that have Diesel prices that are $5.00 and higher and sometime we cannot avoid those prices but I wanted to encourage each driver to be proactive where he/she fills up the motorcoach. There are many websites that give you the average fuels costs for wherever you are going. A good site that I look at on a regular basis is http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/gdu/gasdiesel.asp. By being proactive at finding the low price for fuel in whatever location you are in can help save the company a lot of money in the long run. For example, I know that in Illinois, the average cost for diesel is 4.85-4.90. If we would have filled up at the station for 4.85 instead of 5.00 we would have saved .15 cents per gallon. A motorcoach will hold around 230 gallon which would be a savings of around $35.00. I know that does not seem like much but in the long run that number really adds up. Also, if we run our motorcoaches on the top half of the tank, the more options we have to fill up at cheaper stations.

I will be back with more fuel saving ideas in the near future.

Luke B.

New Website Post

I just posted new pictures of the LX motorcoach that we are currently running out of our Kansas City Market. If you get a chance, check out http://www.arrowstagelines.com/services-luxury.asp to see the pictures. Have a good weekend!

New CTNT AD for Arizona Diamondbacks

Our Phoenix Division, Corporate Transportation 'N Tours, was awarded the Official Transportation Provider of the 2008 Arizona Diamondbacks Hometown Tour. I must admit that I love doing transportation for Sports teams. If its the NBA, NFL, MLB, NCAA, etc... I love it! When we were awarded this business, we decided to put an AD together for the program and I wanted to share it all with you. I think it came together really nice.

DriveCam Update - Great Job Pete!

Here is an portion of our Safety Directors newsletter article coming out this month. Great job Pete!!!

I’d like to take a moment to emphasize once again what I’ve been saying all along. DriveCam is a driver’s best friend! Any effort to circumvent the camera, such as covering the interior lens, is extremely foolish. The DriveCam footage from the Utah accident has been invaluable.

I’d like to publicly acknowledge one particular individual who has completely bought in to the DriveCam system and concept, and that is Lincoln Transportation Supervisor Pete Wooley. Pete has done a phenomenal job with DriveCam, and has made it a priority in the day to day operations at the Lincoln location.

Pete is definitely in the lead when it comes to using DriveCam as the tool it was intended to be. Pete regularly monitors his system, working directly with DriveCam when there is an issue with the system. He keeps DriveCam personnel regularly updated on equipment changes and staff changes. Most importantly, he is the most consistent with face to face coaching of drivers.

At a recent drivers meeting, Pete asked all of the drivers to raise their hands if they felt DriveCam has changed the way they drive. Almost every hand in the room went up. Pete also explained that the Lincoln location had over 800 triggered events in 2007. Right now, although it’s early in the year, they are tracking to have less than 400 by the end of 2008! DriveCam personnel once called Pete to ask if his system was working. They had not seen any triggered events in several days and wondered if the system was down! Next month I’ll share more details regarding Pete’s management of the DriveCam program, which includes survey results.

Pete is a prime example of how we’re trying to incorporate DriveCam into our company culture. Pete has taken complete ownership of DriveCam in his location. We applaud your efforts Pete! Keep up the great work, and thank you!

New School Buses Have Arrived!!

The new Air Conditioned School Buses have arrived! They are hands down the nicest school buses I have every seen.

Regarding the motorcoach accident in Utah

On behalf of everyone at Arrow Stage Lines, we want to express our deepest condolences to the family members that are dealing with this loss and the injuries sustained in the accident. Our prayers are with you during this tragic time. We are devastated that something like this has happened.