There are many aspects of school bus safety that a district transportation manager must oversee, but one of the most critical is implementing measures to prevent onboard fires. Fires on school buses are more common than people realize. In fact, the DOT estimates that one or two fires happen every school day.  Fortunately, most of these happen when students aren't onboard, but tragedies do occasionally happen. On average, 22 people are hurt or killed every year by bus fires.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently made a significant announcement that may impact anyone attempting to manage a school bus fleet: They will be updating their standards on nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions from heavy engines, for the first time in 20 years. Those standards changes will almost undoubtedly include school bus engines and may hasten the need for engine upgrades among districts running older fleets.

When managing a school bus transportation network, there are a lot of factors to keep track of, and sometimes it's easy to let the little things slip by. However, in the case of school bus idling, it's a little thing that adds up to big problems! Your drivers should be trained to avoid idling whenever possible and driving in such a way that minimizes the need for it.

In recent years, school districts around the country have had to improve security in response to ever more shootings, violence, and even terrorist activity. It's a dangerous world, and schools have to be prepared. However, all too often a district will focus all its efforts on their school buildings and other immediate property, while mostly overlooking school bus security.

When it comes to running a school bus transportation system, nothing is more important than protecting the precious cargo onboard each bus. For a long time, transportation administrators had limited options for improving bus safety, but in recent years we've seen a big boom in research and development of new bus safety features.

So in today's article, we wanted to highlight some of the new safety systems that may be coming to your school bus transportation system in the near future.

In a recent webinar, the President of ROUSH CleanTech, Todd Mouw, made a bold proclamation: "Propane [in school buses] is going to be the lead horse for the next decade," referring to its status as the most commonly used alt fuel. ROUSH CleanTech provides a variety of alt-fuel vehicles and conversion systems, so he doesn't have a horse in this race, so to speak. As one of the major players in this field, he would be in a position to know which alt-fuels were leading.

Most people in the industry - including Mouw - believe that electric vehicles will eventually become dominant in the school bus industry. However, that day is at least a decade off, possibly more. In the meantime, a fuel is needed to bridge the gap between gasoline and pure electric buses.

Is propane that bridge?

Are school bus seat belts a feature that would save lives, or are they more trouble than they're worth? For decades, the conventional wisdom was the latter: Buses are already so safe that any benefits added by belts would be minimal, and counterbalanced with new safety problems they'd create. However, more and more evidence is starting to challenge this perception.

According to School Transportation News, there have been 14 accidents near school bus stops in 2018 - with five of the accidents occurring in November alone! Of those accidents, eight resulted in student fatalities - tying the number of deaths in 2017. In every case, the accident would have been preventable.

Do your bus drivers feel well-supported by management and other employees of your school district? With the school bus driver shortage still causing problems, this is an important question! A district needs to maintain awareness of their drivers' morale. Otherwise, they could be easily poached by other districts, or decide to move into other areas of commercial driving work.

Here are a few ways your district can support your bus drivers and ensure their morale remains high.

When it comes to school bus safety, there's a tendency to focus on features that provide physical safety - and understandably enough. However, security is also a major element in bus safety, and should not be overlooked. Fortunately, companies involved in school bus technology know this, and have been putting new solutions on the market that help improve awareness and oversight of a bus fleet.

The right technological investments can help you prevent unwanted guests on your bus, keep track of your buses and riders, and keep your fleet secure when it's not in use. These are some of our favorites.