Citibus runs public transit in Lubbock, Texas. Their job is to keep buses moving, safely and on schedule. For years, the maintenance operation holding that together ran on paper write-ups, manual work orders, and a spreadsheet someone had to check every morning. When maintenance systems break down, everything downstream breaks down with them. For Citibus, that was happening every day.
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A maintenance operation held together by paper

Before implementing Spare EAM, the Citibus maintenance team ran on write-ups, spreadsheets, and workarounds. After every vehicle run, operators filed paper write-ups by hand. Work orders meant more paperwork. Information between operators and the maintenance team was delayed at best, and often never made it at all.

The moment things came to a head was surprisingly small, printers started failing regularly. But the disruption it caused revealed a much bigger problem. Core workflows depended on physical hardware, and when that hardware broke down, so did everything else. 

“Before Spare, I would have to look at the spreadsheet. At the end of every day, they had write-ups off every single vehicle. We would have to make temporary work orders on more paper.” — Oscar Reyna, Daytime Shop Foreman, Citibus

Picking vendors, not just software

For Citibus leadership, finding the right system was only part of the decision. The vendor relationship mattered just as much.

“The vendors I want to work with are the ones that are going to be there to help when we need it — willing to roll their sleeves up and get dirty with us. Spare has been that organization for us.” - Chris Mandrell, General Manager, Citibus

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Spare's approach treats the asset as the source of truth, which is aligned directly with how Citibus needed to operate. Vehicles are the most expensive and most critical part of any transit agency. Every data point should flow from them.

For Citibus, that wasn't an abstract promise. It was the difference between a printer failing and an entire workflow stalling

“Enterprise asset management is a way for agencies and municipalities to organize and manage their assets . It saves a lot of miscommunication and a lot of paperwork.” — Spare EAM Product Team

Five people, one system, no more paper

Spare EAM rolled out across Citibus's five-person maintenance team. Every workflow moved to tablets. Parts management went from informal and error-prone to tracked and transparent. And the information gap between operators and maintenance closed.

The difference between before and after was significant. Paper write-ups are gone. Work orders are live, with visibility across the whole team. Operators and maintenance staff communicate in real time. Parts inventory is managed directly in the system. Analytics run from the same live data, with no need to export to outside tools.

“You’re pulling information right from the same source, all the data points are accessible and all of them are reporting on. You lose a lot of that context when you drag it into another BI tool.” — Spare EAM Product Team

What surprised them most

For a team that had spent years working around a broken system, the shift was immediate and tangible. Paper write-ups and manual work orders are gone. Parts tracking is centralized and reliable. Operator-to-maintenance communication that used to be delayed or absent now happens in real time. Built-in analytics replaced the need for outside reporting tools. All five maintenance staff, including parts personnel, adopted the platform fully.

Agency leadership called it a straightforward decision. The quality of work improved, and the team felt it quickly.

Oscar Reyna put it plainly: "I would say to definitely try it, maybe even just for a month. You would realize how much of a change it makes, how much easier it makes the job. The communication is just so much better in general."

What changed

The story doesn’t end here — see how Citibus stopped running transit maintenance on paper with Spare!

Want to see what a paperless maintenance operation looks like in practice? Our team can walk you through how Spare EAM works and whether it's the right fit for your agency. Connect with our team →