On the first day of school, the bus was hours late to pick up Lily Giesy for fifth grade at Louis Armstrong Middle School in East Elmhurst.

The second day was worse. Lily said the bus driver closed the bus doors and asked her and the other children how to get to their school.

And then there was the third day, when an 8th grader had to step in in to guide a lost driver (a different one) back onto his assigned route.

"I was just scared that we wouldn't see our parents because I was desperately wanting to get home,” said Lily.

"It was so hot,” her friend Elizabeth Lormé added She said the bus took an extra hour to get home that day and it "had no AC, so it was torture."

Several parents from District 30 in Western Queens told WNYC that they’ve dealt with lost drivers, no-show buses and safety violations from Grandpa’s Bus Company since school began this year.

“This is the first year we took this district on and the routes are longer and more complex than we anticipated,” said Corey Muirhead, Director of Contracts & Business Development for Grandpa’s parent company, Logan.

The Department of Education reassigned four routes from Grandpa’s to another company on Monday, after drivers were late or didn't show up at all, Education Department spokesperson Miranda Barbot said.  

“We are working closely with families and bus companies to get children to school safely and efficiently,” she said.

A city hotline for bus issues has received more than 82,000 calls since school started — nearly 14,000 more than this time last year.

Unreliable school bus service has even touched the home of City Comptroller Scott Stringer.

"My first grader was on his way to catch a school bus and the school bus never came,” he told WNYC on Monday.

Stringer sent a letter to schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, asking him to account for the long delays and ill-trained drivers described by students.

Stringer said the issue could result in an audit of the Department of Education's bus contracts.