"Anna, you found us!" Gloria called when she noticed her. She shut off the hose and set it away carefully. "I'm sorry. I wanted to finish rinsing this side before the water dried."
Anna shook her head. "Don't apologize. I didn't realize the depot was this extensive. Your team runs a very organized operation."
Gloria looked around as though seeing the yard through somebody else's eyes. "It took us years to get it that way, and on certain mornings it still looks like chaos. Come here a moment." She rested a hand against the yellow bus's fender, almost affectionately. "This was the first one I bought. It carried our first students, and for years I drove the route myself."
"I can see why you keep it," Anna said. "The interior must have a thousand stories." Gloria smiled. "Mostly the usual ones.
Forgotten homework, lost gloves, little arguments over who got the window seat. But yes, more than a few stories. Let's go inside, though, before I give you a history lesson instead of a purchasing meeting."
They settled into a small conference room with a wall map, a whiteboard, and a pot of coffee that Emma warned them had been brewed before sunrise. Gloria spread out the route schedules. Red lines represented existing university shuttle runs, blue lines the three new campus contracts, and green lines the backup connections used when traffic or breakdowns disrupted the normal schedule. Anna looked at the map for almost a minute before asking her first question.
"Which part of the operation needs new vehicles first?" she asked. Gloria pointed to the blue routes. "The college and university shuttle division. Our school buses are a separate fleet, with different requirements and contracts. These vans won't replace the buses carrying younger students. They are for the college routes, where we need more frequent pickups and better access to narrow campus roads."
Anna wrote the distinction at the top of her notes. "How many vehicles are you considering, and do you want a single standard configuration?" "Fourteen passenger vans," Gloria answered. "As standardized as practical.
I'd rather train our drivers on one familiar platform and carry a predictable stock of parts than save a little on purchase price and spend years maintaining a mixed fleet." Anna nodded. "Fourteen together. I'll request fleet pricing and ask the manufacturer to confirm what can actually be supplied."
Gloria pointed to a route serving the hospital district. "This one reaches the university's health sciences campus. Students have to be there on time for early clinical placements, and a missed connection can mean more than a late lecture." Anna traced the route with her pencil. "So you need predictable starting performance, reliable air conditioning, seats that can stand up to constant turnover, and service availability at the hours your vehicles actually run."