SEYMOUR – On Aug. 12, Kobussen Buses celebrated its increased conversion to propane-fueled buses, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony held at its Seymour location.
“It’s cleaner, it’s cheaper, it’s easier, it’s just a better product,” explained Kobussen President Dan Kobussen.
Out of their 800 buses, Kobussen said they were up to 200 propane-run buses in their fleet.
“We love it,” he added, “I mean, they’re quieter, they’re warmer for the kids…They’re a lot cleaner. They’re not only cleaner in the environment, but they’re cleaner in their oil changes and stuff like that. It’s just easier to do,”
The company runs both coach and school buses, but made the switch to propane specifically for their school buses.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” said Kobussen, “the reason propane works so well for school buses is because of the fact that we don’t tow around a lot of weight. So like a semi wouldn’t be a good application of propane, because it can’t pull all that weight; same thing with the motor coach. The motor coach is so much heavier because it’s mostly made out of stainless steel, and it’s just a heavier, bigger vehicle, so it’s not conducive to that. So our motor coaches are still diesel. However, school buses, you know, it’s a perfect application of it (propane)... because of the fact that they run a light load. That’s why it works so well.”
During the ribbon-cutting event, Kobussen told the unique story of the company’s start.
“Well my grandfather was a dairy farmer and he didn’t like to work very much. He liked to talk, so he hired a hired hand and had that person milk the cows and then he took the milk to town. Well he, like I said, liked to talk and just going to town wasn’t enough for him; so, he had to stop at the other farmers to find out how they were doing and see what was going on. So, he would talk to them (and) ultimately started taking their milk to town also. So then he started a milk truck company. Then ultimately, those farmer’s…kids needed to get to town to go to school, so he started taking them to town. Then he bought a bus. So then it kind of evolved from there,” he recalled.
Kobussen highlighted how several Kobussen family members from many generations currently work for the business.
Today, the buses safely chauffeur “28,557 students daily to and from school,” said Kobussen. “We have 33 school districts.”
In the future, Kobusses Buses Ltd. plans to continue adapting by introducing new technology.
“We’re working on a parent app which will give the ability for a parent to be able to see where the bus is and when it’s coming. We’re working on that in several school districts,” he said.
“How we’re rolling it out is by district. So it’s actually already available in New Richmond, which is way on the other side of the state, (and) rolling it out this year in Oshkosh.”
One of the biggest aspects of the business Kobussen wanted to emphasize was, “bus safety. Buses will be back out on the road in September. Just make sure everybody stops for those red lights. It’s a big issue we have in Wisconsin and the whole United States with cars passing school buses with red lights on. We had two major incidents last year where, thank God really, nobody got injured on the buses anyway. It’s a big issue when cars don’t stop for the buses that are stopped and loading or unloading students.”
For more information, visit Kobussen.com.
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