School buses are extremely expensive, and represent a huge investment for any school district which has purchased a fleet. It's entirely understandable that a district would want to get the most possible use out of their buses. However, nothing escapes the ravages of time, and at some point any school bus will outlive its usefulness.

Pitching a major fleet upgrade can be an uphill battle, but sometimes it's simply necessary. Or, at least, the cost-benefit analysis points towards old buses being too much of a liability. Here are some big warning signs that those older buses should probably be replaced.

As things stand, there are a lot of arguments in favor of embracing a school bus tracking system, and very few reasons not to. Tracking your school buses on the road gives you much better insight into your bus operations, provides plenty of data to help lower your on-road costs and, of course, substantially improves school bus safety.

Bus tracking is an investment into your fleet that easily justifies the expense, and will quickly pay for itself through lowered costs.

There is no doubt that the most dangerous time for any student riding the bus is when they are getting on and off the bus. The entire perimeter around the bus has been dubbed the "danger zone" due to how exposed students are. So, one major focus of school bus safety initiatives has been to find ways to make that danger zone less dangerous.

Now, we may be a lot closer to that goal than ever before. One of the leading bus technology vendors, Safe Fleet, has announced a new series of products all aimed at protecting students near the bus's perimeter.

Nothing will make the danger zone 100% safe, but if Safe Fleet's new products live up to their sales pitch, they will substantially improve school bus safety.

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 face.

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 regular and diesel gasoline are harmful to the environment.