WORCESTER, Mass. — Although classes don't start in Worcester until Monday, the city's school buses are already out on the streets.

The district's transportation department does training and dry runs ahead of the new academic year. This will be the third year Worcester is operating its own bus system.

The number of routes has grown from 82 at the start of last year to 101 now. The district's transportation director, Michael Freeman, says they're more prepared this year compared to the past, and are fully staffed with 115 big bus drivers and 107 small bus drivers.

"It has been chaotic, nervous," Freeman said of the first two years. "But I think over this past three years we built a reliable system and put processes in place where this year, Aug. 1, we had almost everything done for the start of school, and the office staff here was walking around going, what are we missing? What are we doing? We actually had people taking vacation time in the last couple of weeks before the start of school. So it has been a lot different feel this year with as far as it has not been stressful."

The district's buses use an average of 13,000 gallons of fuel every week, but since making the switch to operating the bus system, Worcester says it's saved at least $5 million a year.