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Reducing School Bus Transportation Technology Complexity: Four Tips

When adopting new technology in your school bus transportation processes, there's always the promise that it will help simplify your administrative life and streamline operations. In many cases, this is true. However, problems can arise when a district ado..

What You Need To Know About the Ohio School Bus Lap/Shoulder Belts Bill

For decades, one of the most controversial subjects involving school bus safety was the matter of seat belts: Should school bus seat belts be mandated? The debate has been reignited this summer with the introduction of Ohio House Bill 680 on May 22, 2018. ..

New York School Buses Bring Hybrids Back

For the past decade, many school districts have shown increasing interest in switching to alternative fuel systems. On paper, the benefits are clear: they’d see lower fuel prices and easier maintenance while also reducing the harm their fleet does to the e..

School Bus Drivers: Tornado Preparedness

5 School Bus Trends for the 2018-2019 School Year

These are exciting times for those in the school transportation industry! There has been so much innovation in the world of vehicles, particularly when it comes to integrating computer technology into existing systems. It may take a little while for new id..

School Bus Maintenance: Considering Emissions

If you are investigating the possibility of upgrading your bus fleet to use alternative fuel systems, you have a lot of choices. Green fuels can potentially lower the emissions of your school buses, which in turn can reduce school bus maintenance costs; bu..

Will Self-Driving School Buses Ever Be Practical?

It's impossible to follow technology news without hearing the words "self-driving" on an almost daily basis. Both vehicle and technology groups around the world are racing to have the first street-ready autonomous vehicles in every field of motoring imagin..

Preparing Children to Ride the School Bus

Will your incoming 2018-19 students be ready for their first bus rides? Summer is the perfect time to help parents prepare their children! There's probably no more challenging time for a school bus transportation director than the first week of classes. St..

School Bus Loading and Unloading: Improving Safety In The Danger Zone

Few aspects of school bus loading and unloading are more dangerous than the appropriately-named “danger zone.” The danger zone includes areas near the bus where a student cannot be directly seen by the bus driver, and where incidents involving other vehicl..

Making the Case for Student Transportation Technology

There are more ways to use technology to upgrade your student transportation services than ever before, and they can provide great ROI in terms of efficiency or other cost-savings. However, most technology upgrades still require an up-front investment, and..

Student Bus Transportation: Considering Bell Times

It’s well known that student bus transportation costs are a huge part of a school district’s budget and a truly unavoidable expense. It’s only natural for school districts to look for ways to minimize the costs. Now, some districts are beginning to design ..

School Bus Drivers: Protecting Disabled Students From Bullying

Bullying is a hot topic at the moment, with many seeing the proliferation of bullying as one of the biggest problems in modern school districts. Administrators are under pressure to cut down on bullying and, in particular, shield disabled students from att..

Transportation Management: Tips for Managing Your School Bus Fleet

Overcoming the Challenges of School Bus Fleet Management

Top Tech for Student Bus Transportation

We're living in an age of nonstop technological progress and innovation in all areas of life, and that includes student bus transportation. New school bus technologies are arriving every year, and while not all will become widely adopted, each offers new o..

Looking at Four Choices in School Bus Fuels

Is your district starting to think about alternative school bus fuels? They’re becoming more common, and an increasing number of major bus manufacturers are pushing their alt-fuel designs. Plus, states such as Texas are now beginning to offer rebates and o..

School Bus Safety: Making Loading and Unloading Safer

It’s generally agreed that loading and unloading are the most dangerous times for a child riding a school bus. In fact, the loading and unloading area is even occasionally referred to “the danger zone” because of how many problems could potentially occur. ..

Four Ways to Communicate School Bus Route Changes

When it comes to drawing up bus routes, most districts try to do it at the beginning of the school year and stick with it. Sometimes that’s just not possible, and circumstances beyond their control dictate that routes may have to be re-planned during the s..

Texas Pushes Alternative School Bus Fuels: The Clean School Bus Program

The topic of school bus fuels and the environmental harm done by bus fleets is being treated with increasing concern. With the majority of school buses on the road still being powered by diesel engines, they’re responsible for a lot of pollution. Many dist..

Extra Red Lights to Reduce Illegal School Bus Passing

Without a doubt, one of the biggest threats to the safety of students riding school buses is other drivers. Illegal school bus passing is a huge problem nationwide. Ongoing studies in recent years have suggested that it happens tens of thousands of times e..

School Bus Safety News: California May Delay Child Reminder Alarms

One morning in 2015 a nonverbal, autistic high school student named Paul Lee was left behind on his Whittier, CA, school bus. Eight hours later, in temperatures approaching 100 degrees, he was dead – not discovered until it was time for the bus’s afternoon..

New RE Series School Bus in Production Offers Improvements In Performance And Safety

The RE Series school buses from IC Bus are already a popular solution for student bus transportation, but they’re about to get significantly better. IC Bus has just announced their newest Type D buses, already going into general production, and they offer ..

New York May Levy Steeper Stop-Arm Fines - But Is That The Right Approach?

When drivers endanger school bus riders thousands of times every day by ignoring stop-arm signals, it’s clearly a problem that needs solving. But how? One of the more common solutions being adopted is the use of stop-arm cameras, which work in roughly the ..

Bonuses to Attract School Bus Drivers: 5 Tips

The current school bus driver shortage shows no signs of abating. In fact, if more states follow Tennessee's lead and start imposing stricter requirements on school bus drivers, that could actually make the recruitment-and-retention problem worse. It's a d..

Fixing Holes in School Bus Safety

Staying on top of school bus safety is a never-ending challenge for any district transportation coordinator. There are plenty of ways that a school bus and its routes can be made safer, and never quite enough time to address them all. Undoubtedly, any bus ..

More Stringent Requirements for TN School Bus Drivers

On November 21, 2016, a true tragedy occurred in Tennessee. A 24-year-old school bus driver with a history of speeding was involved in a school bus crash that killed six students and injured over a dozen more. In response, the state of Tennessee enacted Ho..

Intelligent School Bus Seating - The Future Of School Bus Safety?

In a perfect world, cost wouldn't be an issue when it comes to school bus safety. School buses would be outfitted with the latest in safety features to ensure the highest possible rates of safety and accident survivability. Unfortunately, that’s not the re..

School Bus Safety: Solving the Stranded-Student Problem

If you follow school bus safety news at all, it’s hard to avoid headlines about students being accidentally left behind on buses. It happens several times a year, at a minimum, and always causes concern. Sometimes the police are involved. Sometimes, career..

School Bus Tracking Can Bring Peace of Mind to Parents

Everyone says, “Think of the children!” when it comes to school bus tracking, but perhaps we should be saying, “Think of the parents!” instead. Discussions about bus tracking tend to revolve around the many safety benefits that tracking brings to students,..

Ramping Up Accessibility With Low-Floor School Buses

School bus accessibility is a major concern among school districts who find themselves with one or more mobility-impaired students. Legally, in nearly all cases, they are required to provide necessary accommodations for riding the bus. But, those accommoda..

GPS Trackers Versus Bluetooth Trackers: The Major Differences

There’s a lot of new high-tech devices being used in schools, and it’s easy to get confused about what they do, particularly when they seem to be similar products. So it’s not surprising that we get a lot of questions about GPS trackers versus Bluetooth tr..

New Federal Mandates for Entry-Level School Bus Driver Training

Big changes to how entry-level school bus driver training is handled are coming, with new hurdles that new drivers have to clear before getting their license. These changes are coming from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), a part of ..

Electric School Buses Coming In 2019 - Time To Think About Upgrading?

An electric school bus is one of those ideas that often seems to sound better on paper than it is in practice. Everyone knows that fossil fuels won't last forever, and they’re bad for the environment. But the costs of moving to electric, and the significan..

4 Tips for School Bus Driver Evacuation Training

No one likes to contemplate the idea of a school bus being involved in a major accident, such as one which leads to it flipping or rolling. But, the reality is that such accidents are always a possibility. Even the best-trained school bus driver can be und..

What Should a School Bus GPS Parent App Include?

More and more districts are starting to adopt GPS tracking systems in their buses, to help them track and optimize their fleets. However, GPS systems can have another big benefit. When paired with the right school bus GPS parent app, it can make life easie..

Safe Kids Worldwide Promotes Stop-Arm Camera Advocacy

It’s a situation bus drivers have seen countless times: They bring the bus to a stop, extend the stop-arm, begin to let students disembark – only to see a car behind them ignore the stop sign and speed past. Every time this happens, children are endangered..

School Bus Drivers: 4 Bright Recruiting Ideas

Districts everywhere are suffering from a lack of school bus drivers, and the shortage shows no signs of going away. If you’re going to get the drivers you need, you often have to be more clever than other recruiters. In previous blogs, we’ve covered many ..

School Bus Safety: 5 Important Factors When Securing Wheel Chairs

Has your district recently reviewed their policies for dealing with wheelchair-bound students on school buses? Ever since the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1976, schools have been required to make accommodations for children in wheelchairs,..

Student Bus Transportation: Four Goals for 2018

Just as with every other aspect of your district, it’s important to have goals for your student bus transportation in the coming year. Some of these may simply be along the lines of “stay within all relevant regulations,” but some might be a bit more ambit..

The Future of School Bus Driver Safety: Four Things To Look Forward To

Vehicle technology is advancing at an incredible pace these days, probably the fastest since the early days of automobiles. The convergence of tech fields such as cloud computing, vehicle tracking, high-resolution optics, and artificial intelligence is cau..

School Bus Fleet Department Overhaul: Five Areas To Consider

School transportation budgets are often tight, and that can make proper school bus fleet development a real challenge. It becomes easy – perhaps unavoidable – to look at fleet development in terms of small ad-hoc changes as budget allows, without much plan..

New Device Could Detect Students Left on School Buses

It seems like a problem which should be preventable, yet it still happens with some regularity: children being forgotten and left behind on school buses. Proper school bus safety procedures mandate the driver always check for overlooked riders, but mistake..

Student School Bus Safety Programs: 4 Options

How much does your district spend on school bus safety training? If yours is a typical district, it's probably not much. Yet, over and over, districts which have implemented more robust programs have found that bus safety training can significantly reduce ..

Should School Bus Drivers Get Diversity Training?

While it's true that bus driver training is already a fairly lengthy process, more school districts are starting to add another element to their curriculum: diversity training. Providing diversity training to your school bus drivers can help them fit in be..

8 Facts About the EPA's School Bus Rebate Program

The EPA receives a grant of approximately $7,000,000 which will be used in a school bus rebate program, encouraging districts to upgrade older diesel buses. These buses contribute huge amounts of CO2 and NOX to the atmosphere, so it's in everyone's interes..

School Bus Safety: Identifying High-Risk Drivers

Many challenges face school district transportation managers when it comes to the current bus driver shortage, but one of the biggest issues is keeping driver quality high. Even when good drivers are hard to find, that can never justify hiring a bad driver..

4 Benefits of RFID Student Ridership Tracking Systems

Technology is making lives easier in just about every way, and school districts are now harnessing the power of these advancements to keep students safe. RFID student ridership tracking has now been implemented in school buses around the country, and these..

Can Technology Improve the School Bus Driver Experience?

The iconic school bus is a familiar site during the fall months. Driving this vehicle is still a major responsibility, but advances in transportation technology have done their part to improve the school bus driver experience and make the daily ride safer ..

STN Expo: Perspectives on Driver Training

Though riding a school bus remains one of the safest forms of transportation available, an increased emphasis on school bus driver training across the country aims to increase student safety for those with special needs. At the most recent STN EXPO, three ..

Fleet Management Software and School Bus Preventative Maintenance

Technology is rapidly changing the way that school districts manage their transportation departments. Along with solutions like bus routing and tracking software programs, many professionals are relying on fleet management software to keep on top of their ..

Five Reasons School Bus Drivers Quit

The current shortage of school bus drivers is really a twofold problem. Part of the problem is recruitment, but the other part is in retention. School bus drivers have a turnover rate that's significantly higher than average - particularly when it comes to..

Student Tracking: Improving Safety on and off the School Bus

Is it time to consider student tracking systems? For an increasing number of school districts, the answer is yes. Student tracking, such as through RFID systems, offers many distinct benefits in terms of both safety and streamlined administration, with rel..

How Effective Are School Bus Tracking Systems?

School bus tracking systems are gaining in popularity, but how effective are they? Over the last several years, transportation technology has developed by leaps and bounds, so it can be difficult for school districts to sift through the options and determi..

Are Drivers Solely Responsible for School Bus Safety?

One of the biggest mistakes we occasionally see people make in regards to bus driving is believing that school bus safety begins and ends on the school bus itself. It's understandable how someone might take a reductive view on the matter since, after all, ..

4 Myths About School Bus Tracking

School bus tracking systems that utilize GPS technology have been around for a while, but there is still some controversy surrounding their use. Though the same types of systems are commonplace in privately owned cars, taxis, and public transportation vehi..

Being a School Bus Driver Isn’t As Easy as You Think

School districts across the country are struggling to fill vital school bus driver positions. There’s a reason that great school bus drivers are difficult to find and keep: driving a school bus requires more than just driving skill and patience. The job re..

Who Reaps the Benefits of GPS Student Tracking?

School districts all across the country are implementing GPS Student Tracking programs. The reasons for implementing GPS technology vary, and it can be confusing to know who benefits most from it. However, there are distinct reasons why school districts, p..

School Bus Fleet Management: Using Technology to Manage Risks

Taking preventative measures to reduce risks when routing children is especially important in all sectors. Managing risk is an important component of school bus fleet management and technology is helping to ease the burdens that transportation officials fa..

Scope of RFID School Bus Tracking Systems in Security Measures

Radio frequency identification, also known as RFID, is a state-of-the-art technology that is used for many purposes, including keeping students safe. A student’s unique information is stored on a chip within a special ID card. This chip transmits identific..

Driver Training: Avoiding Driver Behavior That Causes Accidents

Nothing is more important for school bus driver training than encouraging them to drive safely. With dozens of young lives at stake on every drive, this is inarguably the #1 priority for any school district. Unfortunately, not every driver training program..

3 Reasons GPS Student Tracking Is So Popular

There’s no denying that advanced technology is a part of the daily lives of most Americans. School district staff and parents expect to locate students quickly when an issue arises, and they expect transportation departments to have access to the technolog..

3 Benefits of Wi-Fi on School Buses

What was once the stuff of science fiction, are now a way of life. The Internet is everywhere, even on school buses! One district in California made the bold decision to make Wi-Fi available to its student population and the concept is quickly catching on...

What Are School Bus Drivers Looking For In Their Jobs?

There are a lot of factors behind the current shortage of school bus drivers. One of the biggest reasons is that school bus driving can be seen as an unattractive career choice. There are many common problems and complaints about school bus driving which c..

Trends in Transporting Special Needs Children

There are many challenges involved in running and managing a school transportation system, but the issue of transporting special needs children is its own special category. Because schools are generally obligated to provide services and work around the nee..

Roadblocks to Driver Recruitment and Retention

The school bus driver shortage isn't getting any better. In recent nationwide surveys of school districts, nearly all reported difficulty in maintaining driver staffing levels and roughly 30 percent described their shortage as "severe or desperate." Many s..

School Bus Technology Trends to Watch

For trend-watchers, these are exciting times for school bus technology. Unlike many other fields where tech trends are pushed by frivolous consumer whims, technology for school buses is inherently practical. BusBoss stays up-to-date with the technology tre..

School Bus Fleet Management: Pros and Cons of Alt-Fuels

Alternative fuels such as propane or compressed natural gas (CNG) are a hot topic within the transportation industry, including those involved in school bus fleet management. Everyone knows we have a limited supply of petroleum on the planet and that regul..

Five Trends in School Bus Driver Retention

The current school bus driver shortage means that holding onto your existing drivers is of paramount importance. If you lose a good driver, it could be months - or more - until you find a suitable replacement. Unfortunately, due to the pressures and proble..

5 Great Tips for Informing and Engaging Parents on Transportation Issues

Parents need to know what is happening with their children once they leave their home and are in the custody of their district. Here are just a few things you can do to ease their concerns. 1. Have multiple forms of contact Don't rely solely on telephone, ..

Fifteen Ways School Administrators Can Support School Bus Drivers

Given how badly the school bus driver shortage is affecting school districts around the country, it's absolutely vital that school transportation directors and administrations do whatever they can to retain the drivers on their payroll. In many areas, this..

Propane-Powered School Buses Lower the Cost of Student Transportation

School districts across North America are switching to alternative fuel sources for their bus fleets, and for good reason. Propane helps to reduce the costs of school bus transportation while also helping to reduce emissions.

New Standards for Greenhouse Gas, Fuel Efficiency

New standards for medium and heavy-duty commercial vehicles, which includes school buses, were designed to improve fuel efficiency and decrease pollution. Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issue..

Student Tracking Software Aids Medicaid Reimbursement

Depending on the state where your school district is located, you may be receiving Medicaid reimbursement dollars for the transportation of special needs students. As with any reporting for government funding, the process of collecting and communicating th..

School Bus Seat Belts: How Costs Factor Into the Debate

The debate over the installation of seatbelts in school buses isn’t likely to end soon. Many states now require, or have introduced legislation to require, seatbelts on vehicles that transport students. While it’s easy to assume that installing seatbelts w..

School Bus Transportation: Reducing Carbon Footprints

School districts across North America are seeking out ways to reduce their carbon footprint, and transportation departments are playing a major role in this process. Of course, switching to propane or other cleaner fuels to power school buses is one way to..

Should School Bus Routes Look at Avoiding Left Turns?

There are things we do in BusBoss to minimize left turns, but we do not prevent them. Specifically, in the routing algorithm, we assign a "value" for navigating an intersection. It's not exactly like this, but it's close enough for discussion purposes.

South Carolina District Gets Tough on School Bus Riders

A Policy Overhaul Keeping students safe from accidents and violent behavior in the classroom is naturally a top priority for school districts across the country. Student safety is just as important during the trip to and from school, where small distractio..

Routing Software Keeps Drivers Updated

With challenges such as students moving in and out of the school district and moving to new homes within the district, school bus drivers need to stay informed about where to pick up the children they are driving to school. When student bus stops change, w..

Nebraska Legislator Tries for School Bus Seat Belts

Though national safety groups, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, are now advocating for the installation of seatbelts on buses, most states do not require this feature. Nebraska State Senator Robert Hilkemann would like to add h..

School Bus Safety: Safeguarding Students That Use Wheelchairs

Ensuring the safety of students that use wheelchairs can be a challenge. School bus safety has come a long way in the last several years. Specific regulations now include safety provisions for all students, regardless of their ability.

National Safety Council Joins the Appeal for School Bus Seat Belts

In 2015, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced its endorsement of seat belts on school buses. The National Safety Council (NSC) now shares this view and has made its endorsement of seat belts on school buses public.

New Heavy-Duty Electric Drivetrain Designed for School Buses

Options in gasoline alternatives for student bus transportation continue to expand. As we've talked about before, both propane and natural-gas engines are becoming more popular with school districts, thanks to their lower ongoing costs and better emissions..

Missouri School District Gets 110 Type C CNG School Buses

Use of alternative-fuel school buses continues to expand around the country, and represents a promising shift away from unsustainable (and polluting) oil-based fuels. Today's news comes out of North Kansas City School District (NKCSD), in Missouri, which h..

Testing Lap-Shoulder Belts for Iowa Student Transportation

It's one of the most common pieces of common knowledge regarding school bus safety: Buses don't need seat belts because they're already so safe that belts simply aren't necessary, so there's no point installing them. But is that about to change?

Students With Disabilities: Improving School Bus Fire Safety

Millions of students ride school buses each day, and they are considered to be one of the safest forms of transportation. Unfortunately, emergencies do happen and it’s important for drivers to be prepared, especially when they transport students with disab..

Student Transportation Software: Costs Versus Benefits

School districts across the country are struggling to determine how to best utilize the limited number of dollars that are available to them. As these districts face sharp increases in expenses, revenue is decreasing, forcing them to be tight with resource..

Student Tracking Software: Sharing School Bus Delays Via Social Media

With a combination of GPS-based school bus tracking systems and RFID-based student tracking software, it's far more difficult for a school system to ever lose track of a student. When you know exactly which students are on each bus, and you know exactly wh..

School Bus Safety: Illegal Passing Exceeds 30K in New York

Illegal passing is an enormous school bus safety concern around the country. One recent New York study shed some light on the problem and just how vast it’s become. According to the report, tens of thousands of vehicles pass stopped buses each and every da..

School Bus Maintenance: An Analysis of Costs

School buses transport millions of students each day to and from schools and special activities. During an average school year, around 10 billion student trips are made. Buses come in many designs and capacities and different districts have varying require..

Pennsylvania School District Saves With Propane-Fueled School Buses

More school districts are discovering that propane could be one of the big keys to cutting school bus transportation costs. In fact, according to a 2014 Department of Energy study, "Propane buses are now mainstream, and represent the nation’s fastest growi..

Northeast Ohio Hosts Safety-in Service School Bus Program

Every year, school buses across Ohio transport more than a million students to and from school. School bus safety is a top concern and a recent training hosted by Austintown schools focused on ways that drivers and administrators can keep students safe.

New Jersey to Require Motion Sensors on School Buses

Earlier this year, the New Jersey Governor signed a law that requires all new school buses to be equipped with motion sensors. These sensors will detect people or objects that are in the blind spots in front of or behind the bus. Legislators and safety exp..

Michigan Student Bus Transportation: End of Route Student Checks

Michigan, as well as many other states, encourage their school districts to embrace robust end of route student checks within their student bus transportation systems. After all, many school districts have horror stories about students being left on the bu..

California School Bus Idling Rules and Regulations

Student safety is a major concern across the country, and in California, specific measures have been taken to improve air quality so that all residents breathe easier. Student bus transportation programs are required to do their part by following certain r..

4 Ways to Decrease Costs With Fuel Management

With school district finances being stretched to the max, administrators are being asked to find innovative solutions for saving money to avoid cutting programs. School District transportation departments are often called upon to minimize their budgets and..

5 Ways to Optimize Vehicle Lift Safety

School bus maintenance is vital for keeping students safe on the road, but ensuring that maintenance staff stays safe should also be a top priority. It’s estimated that over 15,000 accidents leading to hospitalization or death happen each year because of v..

Arizona School Buses Embrace Propane Fueling

Someone call Hank Hill: Propane could be one of the solutions your school district is looking for in lowering school bus transportation costs!

Best Practices for Loading and Unloading School Buses

The laws surrounding the operation of school buses vary from state to state and even district to district, but by utilizing specific best practices, drivers are helping to keep students safe when they enter and exit the bus. Loading and Unloading School Bu..

Cutting Costs With Bus Routing Software

It’s no secret that school districts across the country are having a difficult time balancing their budgets. Whenever a school district faces financial challenges, the transportation department is a likely target for cuts. Eliminating bus stops and changin..

Expanding Internet Access of Minnesota School Buses

The Internet has literally changed the face of American education. Unfortunately, for some students in rural Minnesota it is nearly impossible to access the Web once they’ve walked out of the classroom doors. This has led educators and lawmakers to find ne..

Driver Training Tips: Curbing Violence on School Buses

School-related violence is on the rise in the United States and this has parents and school district officials worried about the safety of students on buses. Bus drivers work in tight spaces and must constantly multitask. This stressful environment can be ..