A school bus is a bus used to transport children and teenagers to and from school and school events. Children may travel to school on regular public bus services. In some cases public bus services may run field trips and athletic events. Private coach services may also put on their own paid services.
In North America, the school bus is a specific type of government regulated vehicle distinct from other types of buses. Canada and the United States have specially built and equipped school buses, which by law are finished in school bus yellow, and equipped with various forms of warning and safety devices used only by them. In Europe and other parts of the world, the vehicles used as school buses are more closely related to other types of buses than their North American counterparts.
North America
In the United States and Canada, school buses are almost universally used to transport students. The design and operation of these buses is highly standardized and strictly regulated by federal and state laws. School buses account for an estimated 10 billion student trips each year.[1] Many[citation needed] U.S. school districts purchase or lease the buses and hire their own drivers, while others engage the service of school bus contractors to perform this function. About 440,000 public school buses travel more than 4 billion miles and daily transport 25 million children to and from schools and school-related activities in the U.S. every year. About 54% of all K–12 students in the country ride yellow school buses.[2] This service is almost always provided without charge to families.
History
The first school bus was horse-drawn, introduced in 1827 by George Shillibeer for a Quaker school at Abney Park in Stoke Newington, London, United Kingdom and was designed to carry 25 children.[1]
Wayne Works, predecessor of Wayne Corporation, was founded in the United States of America in 1837. By 1886, and possibly earlier, it is known that the company was making horse-drawn school carriages which many people referred to as "school hacks," "school cars," "school trucks," or "kid hacks." ("hack" was a term for certain types of horse-drawn carriages.)
Early school buses primarily served rural areas where it was deemed impractical for the young students to walk the distances necessary to get back and forth from school on their own, and were sometimes no more than a truck with perhaps a tarpaulin stretched over the truck bed.
Wayne Works was one of the earliest school bus companies to offer glass in place of the standard canvas curtains in the passenger area long before many "school" bus companies did in the early 1930s[citation needed], although Gillig Bros had invented and patented the design long before.[3] Known as the "California top", the design featured a slightly curved reinforced metal roof, with windows separated by pillars at regular intervals, and each window was adjustable by the use of a latching mechanism.
School Bus Yellow
Children boarding a school bus in 1940.
Most school buses were painted yellow beginning in 1939. In April of that year, Dr. Frank W. Cyr, a professor at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York organized a meeting to establish national school bus construction standards, including yellow body paint. It became known officially as National School Bus Chrome, later renamed "National School Bus Chrome Yellow." The color, which has come to be frequently called simply "school bus yellow", was selected because black lettering on that hue was easiest to see in the semi-darkness of early morning and late afternoon.
The conference met for seven days and the attendees created a total of 45 standards, including specifications regarding body length, ceiling height, and aisle width. Dr. Cyr's conference, funded by a $5,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, was also a landmark event inasmuch as it included transportation officials from each of the then 48 states, as well as specialists from school bus manufacturing and paint companies. The conference approach to school bus safety, as well as the yellow color, has endured into the 21st century.
After World War II
A 1939 Carpenter school bus (on Dodge chassis) seen in a museum display
Following World War II, there were movements in Canada and the U.S. to consolidate public schools, leading to an increase in demand for school buses. Rapid urban growth also outpaced school construction; coupled with the population expansion brought on by the baby boomers themselves having children, the need for busing within large urban centres in North America became acute.[citation needed]
Crown 90-passenger Supercoach
In the 1930s, Wayne Works, Crown Coach, Gillig Bros., and other school bus body companies manufactured some transit-style school buses, that is, buses with a relatively flat front-end design. These are known in present-day nomenclature as type D school buses. Crown Coach built the first heavy duty, high capacity, transit style school coach in 1932 and named it the "Supercoach", as many California school districts operated in terrain requiring heavy duty vehicles. Another factor in the rapid rise in transit-style school bus sales in the 1950s, especially on the West Coast, was the Baby Boom generation. School districts were faced with a rapid rise in student counts and were forced to consolidate, buy larger school buses, or both. As a result, the use of the transit style school bus skyrocketed during the mid 1950s. In 1959, Gillig Bros. introduced the rear-engine diesel-powered school bus. The C-180 Transit Coach soon afterwards became the most popular rear-engine transit-style school bus on the west coast. In 1950, Albert L. Luce, founder of the Blue Bird Body Company, developed a transit style design which evolved into the company's All-American, generally considered[who?] the first successful east coast school bus transit design. However, the conventional Type C design with a truck type hood and front end would continue to dominate US school bus manufacturing through the end of the 20th century.
Canada
Canadian school buses are very similar to their U.S. counterparts. Many American-manufactured school buses are imported to Canada, and there have been Canadian school buses imported to the United States. In French-speaking Quebec, the signage on the outside of the bus is in French; the front and rear legends read "Ecoliers", and the stop sign legend reads "Arrêt". Canada's lone school bus maker is Girardin Minibus. The Corbeil designs made in Canada through the firm's closure in 2008 are now manufactered and sold by Collins in the United States. Canadian models of the Blue Bird All American are rebadged as the Blue Bird TC/3000.
Configurations & designations
The North American school bus industry produces four body styles:
Type A school buses are the smallest, and are separated into two classes by weight. These are constructed from a bus body placed on a cutaway van chassis with a left-side driver's door.
Type A-2: GVWR over 10,000 pounds (created in 2004)
Type B ("integrated") school buses are larger than Type A, with a GVWR over 10,000 pounds. These are constructed from a bus body mounted either to a stripped chassis or to a cowled chassis.
Type C ("conventional") school buses have a GVWR of over 10,000 pounds, typically between 23,000 and 29,500 pounds. These are constructed from a bus body mounted to a cowled medium-duty truck chassis.
Type D ("transit") school buses have a GVWR of over 10,000 lbs, typically between 25,000 and 36,000 pounds. They are constructed from a bus body mounted to a stripped chassis. Unlike other types of school buses, the entrance door is mounted forward of the front axle. The engine is either mounted in the front, in between the axles, or in the rear. [4]
Gallery of U.S. Bus Types
Type A bus.
Type B bus (retrofitted as an "activity bus").
Type C bus.
Type C bus.
Type D bus (front engine).
Type D bus (rear engine).
Type D bus (rear engine).
Type D bus (mid engine).
Short buses
A short school bus.
A short bus, typically a Type A bus, is a shorter-than-normal school bus. While larger school buses typically transport public school students on high density routes to elementary, middle and high schools, shorter buses are typically used for lower numbers of Special Education or Special Needs students who are typically educated in different facilities with resources to meet their needs. Some of these have automated wheelchair lifts to safely lift passengers who cannot climb steps into the bus.
Short school buses are generally the standard eight feet wide, but lengths vary based on seating capacity. A cutaway van chassis is the most common basis for this kind of bus.[5] Some larger capacity models of short buses are similar in construction to the more commonly used large school buses, but are only shorter in length. As states ban the use of 15-passenger vans for transporting children for school and non-school purposes because of safety concerns,[vague] bus-type vehicles are becoming popular out of necessity.[citation needed]
Although such smaller models of school buses are also used for magnet school programs, often transporting exceptionally talented and gifted students, and for many other special purposes where the volume of riders is low, short buses have become associated in some urban slang usage with riders who have mental disabilities.[6]
Industry
Present day
There are currently six North American manufacturers of school buses. Five of them — Blue Bird, Thomas, IC, Collins, and Trans Tech — are based in the United States; Girardin is based in Canada.
Blue Bird Corporation - produces Type A cutaway buses (Micro Bird), Type C buses (Vision), and Type D buses (All American FE, All American RE)
Collins Bus - produces Type A cutaway buses under Collins, Corbeil, and Mid Bus brand names
Trans Tech - produces small and large Type A cutaway buses
Shrinkage
In 1980, there were six major school bus body companies building large school buses in the U.S., producing bodies for chassis from four truck manufacturers, joined by two coach-type school bus builders on the West Coast. With the baby boom years ending, the manufacturing industry faced serious over-capacity as companies vied and competed for lower volumes of purchases by school bus contractors, school districts, and several states which purchase their buses in quantity at the state level.
In 1979, Ward Body Works filed for bankruptcy and was successfully reorganized into AmTran the following year. Superior, under Sheller-Globe, would cease operations in 1982 and again in 1985 after a poorly received redesign of their Type C bus line. Superior would live on, however, as the Type A manufacturer Mid Bus.
On the West Coast, Crown had struggled to survive and was purchased by GE in 1985. Although a new model was designed in 1989 (the Supercoach II) the last Crowns were built in March 1991. Eventually, the rights to the Crown name were purchased by Carpenter Body Works. The Gillig Phantom school bus was introduced in 1986 as a replacement for the 42-year old Transit Coach, but the Phantom did not sell well on a national scale and was dropped in 1993 after none were sold the two years prior; Gillig concentrated on the mass-transit market instead.
Due to the increased market competition and financial problems, Wayne Corporation ceased operations in mid-1995. Much of the inventory was purchased by Carpenter and used on the newly re-branded 1996 "Crown by Carpenter" lineup. Although Crown by Carpenter intitially held their own against AmTran, Blue Bird, and Thomas, their parent company Spartan Motors dropped the Crown name for 2000, only to completely cease operations in mid-2001 (10 years after Crown Coach shut its doors). In 2003, a defect in the roof welds was later found on all Carpenter-brand buses manufactured between mid-1986 and 1996. A lot of school systems were forced to retire buses early and Carpenter had been out of business for some time, leaving districts no recourse.
In 1998, Freightliner purchased Thomas. Although Thomas had one of the largest market shares in the industry, its purchase had many ramifications for years to come. In 1999, Freightliner entered the Type C bus market with the FS-65 chassis. Initially, this was available to all body manufacturers except AmTran, but its availability soon became exclusive to Thomas. The Ford chassis for conventionals was dropped after 2001. After 2004, all Thomas conventionals came only with a Freightliner chassis. At AmTran, all non-Navistar chassis were dropped after 1998. The AmTran name was dropped in 2002 in favor of "International Truck and Bus"; this was replaced in 2003 by IC (Integrated Coach) Corporation, now IC Bus. At Blue Bird, in 2002, a deal with Ford fell through to replace GM as the preferred chassis supplier for the CV200 Type C bus. Two years later, the Vision Type C bus was introduced in its place, using its own chassis; Blue Bird was building both Type C and D bus chassis itself. In 2008, a redesigned All American was introduced as a 2010 model, showing the most extensive changes to the Blue Bird body design in over 45 years.
In the Type A industry, 2008 was a year of major changes. Collins, the largest independent manufacturer of Type A buses, purchased the rights to both Mid Bus and the bankrupt Corbeil names. Manufacturing of all 3 product lines was consolidated into the Kansas factory owned by Collins, which leaves Girardin Minibus as the lone Canadian bus manufacturer.
Defunct manufacturers
All of the following firms below are either wholly defunct or no longer make school buses.
Aside from the purposes of standardization, most of the regulations and changes that have been made to the American school bus over the past 70 years have had to do with safety. Although the large size of a school bus can be an advantage in a collision with vehicles, it has many distinct disadvantages in day-to-day use by drivers and passengers alike. Along with federal mandates, better engineering has led to developments in safety systems to make school buses safer for both drivers and passengers.
However, there are 3 distinct problems that still are facing school bus designers today when it comes to safety:
School buses have many blind spots (and they cause blind spots for other drivers), which create "Danger Zones" while loading and unloading students.
School buses can often operate in poor weather conditions, which can make it hard for them to be seen.
School bus restraint systems are designed differently than those of cars; there currently is no definitive answer to the seat belt debate.
Traffic priority
By the mid 1940's, most states had traffic laws requiring motorists to stop for school buses while children were loading or unloading.[citation needed] The justifications for this protocol are:
Children, especially the younger ones, have normally not yet developed the mental capacity to fully comprehend the hazards and consequences of street-crossing, and under U.S. tort laws, a child cannot legally be held accountable for negligence. For the same reason, adult crossing guards often are deployed in walking zones between homes and schools.
It is impractical in many cases to avoid children crossing the traveled portions of roadways after leaving a school bus or to have an adult accompany them.
The size of a school bus generally limits visibility for both the children and motorists during loading and unloading.
Around 1946, one of the early (and possibly the first) systems of traffic warning signal lights on school buses was used in Virginia. The system comprised a pair of sealed beam units similar to those employed in American headlamps of the time, but with red rather than colorless glass lenses. A motorized rotary switch applied power alternately to the red lights mounted at the left and right of the front and rear of the bus, creating a wig-wag effect. Activation was typically through a mechanical switch attached to the door control. However, on some buses such as Gillig's Transit Coach models and the Kenworth-Pacific School Coach, activation of the roof warning lamp system was through the use of a pressure sensitive switch on a manually-controlled stop paddle lever located to the left of the driver's seat below the window. Whenever the pressure was relieved by extending the stop paddle, the electrical current was activated to the relay.[citation needed]
Around this time, some states began specifying a mechanical stop arm — some state specifications, such as those of Washington, refer to the device as a "stop paddle", due to its resemblance to a large paddle — which the driver would swing out from the left side of the bus to warn traffic of a stop in progress. The portion of the stop arm protruding in front of traffic was initially a rectangle with "STOP" painted on it, and in the late 1960s the rectangle shape was replaced by a double-faced regulation stop sign.
In later years, flashing lights were added to the stop arms, electromechanical wig-wag flasher controls were replaced by electronic ones, and the warning lights were increased from four — two front and two rear, all red — to eight — two amber to warn of an impending stop, and two red to indicate a stop in progress, front and rear. Some jurisdictions, such as Wisconsin and Ontario, Canada still do not permit the amber-and-red system; all-red warning systems are still used in such locales. Newer buses with provisions for the amber-and-red eight-lamp system generally use eight red lenses where amber isn't permitted. Plastic lenses were developed in the 1950s, though sealed beams — now with colorless glass lenses — were still most commonly used behind them until the mid 2000s, when light-emitting diodes (LEDs) began supplanting the sealed beams.
A 1980's Ford-chassis school bus with a Carpenter body
In the United States, approximately 2/3 of students killed outside a school bus are not struck by other vehicles, but by their own bus.[11] Recently, many buses have been equipped with crossing arms which swing out from the front bumper while the bus is stopped for loading or unloading. These force children to walk several feet in front of the bus before they can begin to cross the road, thus ensuring that the bus driver can see them over the hood of the bus.
An increasingly sophisticated array of mirror systems have been developed to enable school bus drivers to see children who may otherwise have been obscured from view in what was long a blind spot.
Another hazardous area is at the loading door; a drawstring or loose clothing may catch on something as a student gets off. If the driver isn't aware, the student may still be attached to the outside of the bus as it begins to pull away. To reduce this risk, school bus manufacturers have reduced the types of handles and equipment near the stepwell area.[citation needed]
Compartmentalization was introduced in 1967, setting the ideal seat back height at 28 inches, though most seat heights are now 24 inches tall.[citation needed] The premise was that surrounding passengers with cushioning to the front and behind provide effective constraint in the event of a collision.
Although not an element of compartmentalization, the UCLA researchers who conducted the 1967 tests on school buses concluded that after high back seats, next in importance to school bus passenger collision safety is the "use of a three-point belt, a lap belt or other form of effective restraint."
Very few school buses have seat belts, a standard safety feature in cars and light duty passenger vehicles. In 1977, as provided in Federal Motor Vehicle Standard 222, the U.S. Federal Government required passive restraint and structural integrity standards for school buses instead of requiring lap seat belts. In the 1980s, some districts in the US tried installing lap belts and then later removed them, claiming operational and passenger behavior problems. Whether lap belts should be required remains controversial,[12] though they are now required in at least 4 states (New York, New Jersey, California and Florida).[citation needed] School buses in Texas will be required to be equipped with seat belts by 2010/2011.[13] Only New Jersey requires seat belt usage.[citation needed] In other states it is up to the district whether to use seat belts or not.
Structural integrity
As the school bus evolved as a specialized vehicle in the United States and Canada, concerns arose for the protection of passengers in major traffic collisions. A particular structural weak point in catastrophic school bus crashes was the joints where panels and pieces were fastened together.
Longitudinal steel guard rails had been in use since the 1930s to protect the sides of buses, but behind them on the sides and on the roofs, by the 1960s, all manufacturers were combining many individual steel panels to construct a bus body. These were usually attached by rivets or similar fasteners such as huckbolts.
Around 1967, Ward Body Company of Conway, Arkansas subjected one of their school bus bodies to multiple rollovers, and noted separation at the panel joints, as well as pointing out that many of their competitors were using relatively few rivets. This resulted in new attention by all the body companies to the number and quality of fasteners. Wayne Corporation's crash tests showed the joints to be points of weakness no matter how many fasteners were used, and in 1973 the company began building "Lifeguard" buses with single longitudinal interior and exterior panels for the sides and roof. Eliminating the joints reduced the number of points for potential body separation in a catastrophic impact.
The unit-panel construction reduced body weight, fastener count, and assembly time. However, it required very large roll-form presses and special equipment to handle the enormous panels. In addition, the panels had to be cut to exact length for each bus body order, which varied with the intended seating capacity and order specifications. This created a marketing disadvantage as the Wayne Lifeguard buses required greater manufacturing lead time than bus bodies made up of riveted smaller panels.
The focus on structural integrity resulted in the joint requirements of the U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for school buses, most of which became applicable for school buses on April 1, 1977. The following, including Standard 221 (joint strength) are generally considered to be the most important, even thirty years later.
Standard No. 217 - Bus Emergency Exits and Window Retention and Release (Effective September 1, 1973) This standard establishes minimum requirements for bus window retention and release to reduce the likelihood of passenger ejection in crashes; and for emergency exits to facilitate passenger exit in emergencies. It also requires that each school bus have an interlock system which will prevent the engine from starting if an emergency door is locked (preventing escape in an emergency) and an audible warning system which will sound an alarm if an emergency door release mechanism is not closed while the engine is running.
Standard No. 220 - School Bus Rollover Protection (Effective April 1, 1977)This standard establishes performance requirements for school bus rollover protection. The purpose of this standard is to reduce the number of deaths and the severity of injuries that result from failure of the school bus body structure to withstand forces encountered in rollover crashes.
Standard No. 221 - School Bus Body Joint Strength (Effective April 1, 1977)This standard establishes requirements for the strength of the body panel joints in school bus bodies. The purpose of this standard is to reduce deaths and injuries resulting from the structural collapse of school bus bodies during crashes.
Standard No. 222 - School Bus Passenger Seating and Crash Protection (Effective April 1, 1977) This standard establishes occupant protection requirements for school bus passenger seating and restraining barriers. The purpose of this standard is to reduce the number of deaths and the severity of injuries that result from the impact of school bus occupants against structures within the vehicle during crashes and sudden driving maneuvers.
Standard No. 301 - Fuel System Integrity - School Buses (Effective April 1, 1977) This standard specifies requirements for the integrity of motor vehicle fuel systems. Its purpose is to reduce deaths and injuries occurring from fires that may result from fuel spillage during and after motor vehicle crashes.
The new Federal Standards of 1977 for school buses represented a siginificant upgrade in school bus safety. Even since then, the industry continues to seek improvement. To reduce the size of the "Danger Zone", safety engineers have made visibility a priority. More sophisticated and comprehensive mirror systems have been developed to better help drivers see children who were off the bus at almost all times. Windshields on almost all Type C and D buses have been significantly enlarged to improve sightlines from the driver's seat. For safety while unloading and loading students, crossing gates were developed to help children avoid walking in the area immediately in front of the bus (another "Danger Zone").
As with any vehicle, a school bus can only be avoided by other vehicles on the road if it can be seen by them. Although the yellow paint was designed to be highly visible, safety engineers have helped to make school buses more visible at night and in poor weather. This was done by adding reflective tape (in varying degrees) to the sides and rear as well as using strobe lights. Over the past 10 years, LED lighting has been becoming a popular option thanks to its higher visibility and longer life, but it has not yet been universally accepted for the 8-way warning lamps.
Video cameras and recorders have become common equipment installed inside school buses, primarily to monitor (and record) behavior of the passengers. However, on March 28, 2000, a Murray County, Georgia, school bus was involved in a wreck with a CSX freight train at an unsignalled grade crossing, killing 3 children. Although the school bus driver claimed to have stopped and looked for approaching trains before proceeding across the tracks, the onboard camera clearly recorded that the bus had not stopped as it approached the tracks prior to the collision.
Modern school buses are often well equipped with amenities lacking only a few years ago such as air conditioning, two-way radios, high headroom roofs (Gillig and Crown Coach were producing high-headroom school buses as early as the mid 1950s) and wheelchair lifts (typically those with lifts are shorter than their counterparts and are sometimes exclusively assigned to carry disabled children).
Generally, a school bus is a pollution-reducing alternative to individual parents driving children to and from school, even when carpooling is taken into consideration. The use of a single school bus can take as many as fifty private cars off the road. However, buses are not a pollution-free alternative, like biking or walking. Since most school buses burn diesel, the amount of pollution emitted has been a concern for some people.[who?] Many school buses sit at idle while waiting for passengers at a pickup stop or school. Most also idle while children are getting on and off.
The exposure of young children and teenagers to large amounts of diesel fumes has led to clean diesel requirements for new school buses in some places. However, some school district fleets include a few school buses which are over 30 years old.[citation needed]
As a result, diesel electric hybrid, compressed natural gas, and hydrogen powered school buses have been developed. Some buses have been retrofitted with emission control technologies and particulate matter filters, while others are being replaced.
Diesel Electric Hybrids
IC Corporation, in collaboration with Enova Systems, unveiled the nation's first hybrid school bus in 2006 at the New York Association of Pupil Transportation (NYAPT) Show. The hybrid school bus is expected to attain a 40 percent increase in fuel efficiency, which becomes even more essential with the rising fuel costs affecting many school districts. Lower maintenance costs are also expected.
Eleven states have joined together for an exploratory purchase of 19 school buses from IC Corporation. New York, California, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas, Iowa and Washington will be the first states in the nation to receive these diesel electric hybrid school buses.
Currently, 16 of the buses are fully funded and International Truck and Engine Corporation has started production on the ordered buses for delivery in late spring 2007.
During the era of segregation in the United States, school buses were often used to transport Black students to all-black schools, which were often further away from their homes than other public schools designated for white students. Sometimes, these were in only one or two locations within an entire county or other school district.
The desegregation plans usually resulted in more pupils of all races assigned to schools further from their homes than before. School buses (and city transit buses in some instances) were often used to transport the students reassigned to different schools beyond a reasonable walking distance. Opponents of this concept began to decry the practice as "forced busing".
In cities such as Richmond, Virginia, when a massive program began in 1971, parents of all races complained about the long rides, hardships with transportation for extracurricular activities, and the separation of siblings when elementary schools at opposite sides of the city were "paired," (i.e. splitting lower and upper elementary grades into separate schools).
In an effort to satisfy parents concerned about mandated long bus rides, many districts such as Richmond later modified their pupil placement plans to provide attractive programs in "magnet schools", and built new school buildings and reconfigured older buildings to develop logistically more favorable attendance plans which met desegregation goals. Combined with changes in housing patterns, the forced busing programs were gradually eliminated as the courts nationwide released districts from orders under old lawsuits.
Today, school buses are still used in most of these districts, but this is much more due to reduced walking zones, concern for pupil safety, and a wider choice of programs and locations for many students.
When a school bus is retired from school transportation in the United States, most states have requirements that school bus lettering must be covered or removed and warning devices deactivated or removed.[citation needed] At least one state prohibits non-school buses from being more than 50% yellow, reserving the color on buses for school buses only.[citation needed] Regulations vary from state to state.
After a school bus has been removed from regular service, it may be used as a substitute for newer buses that have broken down, or been removed from regular service for maintenance. These buses are still maintained to comply with all applicable safety standards, but they usually lack features of newer buses such as air conditioning and tinted windows. When a newer reserve bus becomes available or it is no longer cost-effective to keep a reserve bus in reliable and safe condition, it is completely retired from student transport and is sold, exported, scrapped, or used for light-duty haulage. Many retired school buses are sold to churches and used to transport elderly and mobility-impaired churchgoers to and from church services or to transport youth groups for outings to amusement parks, picnics, and visiting other churches.
Safety
Because school buses sold for non-school transport are generally older models, they do not offer occupants the same level of safety performance as newer buses. This relative lack of safety performance came under some scrutiny after the 1988 Carrollton bus collision. It involved a church bus which had been originally built and served as a school bus, and was one of the deadliest bus accidents in United States history. The driver and 26 others, many of them children and teenagers, were killed in the crash and the ensuing fire. 34 other bus passengers sustained minor to critical injuries. Six bus passengers were not injured. While the immediate cause was the drunk driver of the other vehicle, most of the deaths on the bus occurred because the occupants could not evacuate promptly after the impact.
The accident resulted in a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)[14] investigation and report, as well as extensive media coverage and considerable litigation. Subsequently, many federal, state, and local agencies and bus manufacturers changed regulations, vehicle features, and operating practices. One of the key factors in making the event was the fact that the bus was of an obsolete design which had been abandoned in school bus construction after April 1, 1977: the fuel tank was mounted in an unguarded location outside the frame rails near the front of the bus. The bus was also fueled by gasoline, which is considerably more flammable than the nearly universal present diesel fuel.
While pre-1977 buses have long been phased out of most school usage, many similar buses are still in use as church buses, which remain far less regulated. Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia[15] are the only American states where school bus stop laws are similarly applied to church buses if equipped with flashing red lights used on school buses, and operated in compliance with school bus laws. Other states may have vehicles marked church buses, but they have no church bus stop laws similar to school bus stop laws.
Export
Some used school buses are exported to Latin America, Africa, or elsewhere for use as school buses, municipal transport, or transport of migrant farmworkers.
Conversion & modification
Decommissioned school buses have also been converted to motor homes and recreational vehicles. Enthusiasts of this type of vehicle conversion are sometimes called Skoolies.
Some retired school buses also get purchased by enthusiasts for total restoration to as-new condition. Some school bus enthusiasts also become school bus collectors.
Former school buses are also occasionally modified as cattle vehicles. This involves removing most of the roof, apart from the area covering the driver's seat. A wall is then put in place, effectively making the bus a pick-up truck with an extremely long bed.
Outside of North America, the yellow school bus is uncommon; students who ride the bus to school often ride regular transit buses or school buses that are similar in design to mass-transit buses. These may be painted yellow or other similar shades, but the distinctive school bus yellow is not standardized and so is generally seen only on buses from North America.
In Australia cities, students travel on public buses and trains, or on special routes provided by private bus companies. The school services cross subsidise the regular bus routes. Some smaller schools have their own buses which is an incentive for students to live near the bus routes. In country areas, private contractors operate the buses.
In Hong Kong, younger students are transported between their homes and schools by "nanny vans". These vehicles are all van-based and are smaller than a minibus.
United Kingdom
Wightbus take students to school on the Isle of Wight. Note the prominent warning messages.
Most UK school buses are ordinary buses and the only modification is the fitting of seat belts, though the ones belonging to the former Inner London Education Authority were purpose built. However, not all school buses have seatbelts fitted. The buses are not necessarily yellow and can be used for other purposes when not in use for school journeys, though most children use local scheduled bus services. Dedicated school bus services in the UK in almost all cases are contracted out to local bus companies.
Right-hand drive American-built school buses in the United Kingdom.
North American style yellow school buses are beginning to be introduced, such as under the First Student UK scheme. In Inner London many school children travel to school using the ordinary bus service as the bus stops are very close together and travel is free using the Oyster card system.
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