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A school bus is a bus used to transport children and adolescents to and from school. The first school bus was horse-drawn, introduced in 1827 by George Shillibeer for a Quaker school at Abney Park in Stoke Newington, London, and was designed to carry twenty-five children. Since then, school buses of many types have become widespread, and motorised, and are used in all parts of the world.

Some countries have specially built, painted and equipped school buses. In Canada and the United States they are required to comply with different safety standards than conventional passenger vans and buses. They are commonly painted an orangey-yellow color (officially known as "National School Bus Glossy Yellow") for purposes of visibility and safety and equipped with specialized traffic warning devices. Most used in recent years have been diesel-powered. Full-size school buses can seat 59 to 90 passengers, but in many districts smaller vehicles are used as well. Such smaller vehicles are commonly known as "short buses", and are often associated with private schools and developmentally handicapped programs.

Some U.S. school districts purchase the buses and hire their own drivers, while others engage the service of school bus contractors such as Laidlaw to perform this function. School buses in the UK in almost all cases are contracted out to local bus companies. Elsewhere in Europe school bus services are contracted to local bus companies, which use regional buses that operate on regular lines at other times, or in some case older regional buses.

School buses in the U.S. and Canada

Early modes: wagons, kid hacks

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 Wayne Works 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.)

Motorized vehicles

In 1914, Wayne Works dropped a wooden kid hack onto an automobile chassis, creating a predecessor to the modern motor school bus. In the bodies for school transportation the company produced through this era, passengers sat on perimeter seating, facing the center rather than the front of the bus. Entry and egress was through a door at the rear, a design begun in non-motorized days so as not to startle the horses. This was possibly a precursor to the rear emergency door commonly found on modern school buses.

In 1927, Blue Bird Body Company and Wayne Works began building all-steel bus bodies, followed by others by 1935. In the 1930s, the school bus bodies of Wayne Works began to include a group of heavy-duty "collision rails" or "guard rails" as an added safety feature.

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.

Experiments with transit-style school buses

In the 1930s, Wayne Works, Crown Coach of California, and other school bus body companies manufactured some transit-style school buses, that is, types with a more or less flat front-end design (known in modern times as "type D" school buses). Crown Coach built the first heavy duty, high capacity, transit style school coach in 1932, and is considered to have made the most transit buses during this period, as many California school districts operated in terrain requiring heavy duty vehicles.

In 1950, Albert L. Luce, founder of the Blue Bird Body Company, developed a transit style design which evolved into the Blue Bird All-American, generally considered the first successful east coast school bus transit design. However, the "conventional" design, with a truck type hood and front-end (known as type C on modern school buses) was to continue to dominate US school bus manufacturing through the end of the 20th century.

Dr. Frank W. Cyr: father of the yellow school bus

Most school buses turned the now-familiar yellow color 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 conference that established national school bus construction standards, including the standard color of yellow for the school bus. It became known officially as "National School Bus Chrome, later renamed National School Bus Glossy 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 dollar|US $" target="_blank" >*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. Dr. Cyr became well-known as the "Father of the Yellow School Bus."

Growth in school bus use after World War II

Following World War II, there was a nationwide movement in the U.S. to consolidate public schools into fewer and larger ones. This meant that fewer students were attending school in their immediate neighborhood, particularly as they progressed into high school. This led in turn to a large increase in the demand for school buses.

Safety

Protecting school children loading and unloading

By the mid 1940s, most states had traffic laws requiring motorists to stop for school buses while children were loading or unloading. The justifications for this protocol were that:

  • Children, especially the younger ones, have normally not yet developed the mental capacity to fully embrace the danger and consequences of crossing safety without adult supervision. Under U.S. tort laws, a child cannot legally be held accountable for negligence for this reason. For that 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 to accompany them.

  • The size of a school bus generally limits visibility for both the children and motorists during loading and unloading.

Warning lights and safety devices

School bus safety officials were aware that many accidents occurred when traffic was not aware that the hazard existed, and children on foot were hit by other vehicles. The standardized yellow color helped and warning lettering was painted in large letters on school buses. Several devices were developed to help school bus drivers warn other motorists.

Around 1946, one of the early (and possibly the first) systems of alternating traffic warning lights on school buses was used in Virginia. In those days before the advent of transistors and advanced plastic lens technology, an alternating system was created by using sealed beam headlight bulbs with the lenses colored red, and a mechanical motor and solenoids to alternate the high and low beam filaments in the single bulb fixtures mounted at the front and rear of the bus. School children and drivers were subjected to a loud tick-tock noise from the flasher motor as it was operating. Activation was through a mechanical switch attached to the door control.

Around this time, some states began specifying a mechanical stop arm which the driver could activate to swing out from the left side of the bus to warn traffic. The portion of the stop arm protruding in front of traffic had a sign bearing a warning message.

In later years, flashing lights were added to the stop arms, mechanical flasher devices were replaced by electronic ones, and the front and rear warning lights were increased from two to four and eventually eight (in most states). Plastic lenses were developed in the 1950s which offered greater visibility and significantly lower costs than the early systems which used colored headlight bulbs.

Many school districts are purchasing buses with two stop arms, the additional one located on the left side near the rear of the bus, for extra safety.

School bus stop laws

School bus stop laws vary by locale and there is controversy regarding them and school bus safety.

Protecting children from their own bus

A major hazard to children riding school buses is being struck by their own bus. 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.

Key concepts

The key concepts for preventative measures are under the control of school bus drivers and their riders:

  • A stationary bus cannot run over a rider. In the morning, students should already be at a bus stop and standing stationary as a bus approaches, rather than running toward it as it approaches. Likewise, many school bus drivers avoid after-school loading hazards by arriving and positioning their buses for loading before dismissal whenever possible, so that buses are not moving as the students are dismissed and prepare to load.
  • A school bus driver will not run over a child he or she can see.
  • School bus drivers cannot accidentally run over children who are on board. If backing up or other traffic maneuvers are to take place at the same location as a bus stop, consider a routine to have the children on board while the movement is made.
  • Planned routines are safer than last-minute changes.
  • Riders should never run when approaching a school bus.
  • Get away from the area close to a bus when you get off.
  • Never immediately go back near a stopped bus to retrieve anything you may have dropped.
  • Avoid drawstrings on clothing and possessions which may get entangled while boarding or getting off the bus.

Danger zones

  • The area in front of a school bus has long been known as generally the most hazardous "danger zone". 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." Crossing gates (also called crossing arms) were developed to encourage those children crossing in front of a bus to move away from the bumper area and into an area with a better view of drivers. Additionally, there has also been a trend toward bus designs with less inherent blind spots at the front.

  • The second most dangerous zone is the area on the right side and at the right rear wheels. For this reason, many schools and parents provide safety instruction urging students:
    • When boarding, stay well away from the bus until it is fully stopped. Never approach a moving bus.
    • When leaving the bus, if not crossing the street or road, move away from the bus immediately after getting off, rather than walking closely along the side of it.

  • The third area of hazards are the loading doors. 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 the risk of this happening, school bus manufacturers have reduced the types of handles and equipment near the stepwell area, and children were urged to consider this risk factor when selecting clothing and accessories. Older students are at equal risk with younger ones in this regard.

Structural integrity

As the school bus evolved in the United States and Canada as a specialized vehicle, there became concerns for the protection of the school children during major impacts. A weak point and location of structural failure in catastrophic school bus crashes was well-known to be joints, the points 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 roll, and noted the separation at the joints, as well as pointing out that many of their competitors were using far fewer rivets. This resulted in new attention by all the body companies to the number and quality of fasteners.

Simply increasing the number of fasteners (rivets, screws, and huckbolts) was not enough to satisfy engineers at Wayne Corporation in Richmond, Indiana. In their tests, no matter how many fasteners were used, the joints were always the weak point under high stress loads. They also noted how the continuous guard rails used on the sides tended to spread the stress from a point of impact, allowing it to be shared and dissipated at portions of the body structure further away.

Instead of trying to figure out how to make the fasteners do a better job, they stood back and wondered if the design features of the guard rails could be expanded. The result was a revolutionary new design in school bus construction: Continuous longitudinal interior and exterior panels for the sides and roofs.

Branded the Lifeguard, the new school bus design used Wayne's huge roll-forming presses to make single steel pieces which extended the entire length of the bus body. The concept was that by reducing the number of joints, the number of places where the body could be anticipated to separate in a catastrophic impact was reduced in a like amount.

The "Lifeguard" design reduced overall body weight, the number of fasteners used, and man-hours required for assembly. However, it required the very large roll-form presses and special equipment to handle the panels. A more practical problem was the panels had to be cut to exact length for each bus body order, which varied with seating capacities and from state-to-state. This created a marketing disadvantage as the Wayne factory required greater manufacturing lead time than when parts were more interchangeable between orders under older panel technology.

In the years after Wayne introduced the Lifeguard design in the 1973 model year, competing body manufacturers began moving towards using fewer side panels and joints, although none went as far as Wayne in the 1970s.

Federal standards for school buses

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 25 years later.

Standard No. 217 - Bus Emergency Exits and Window Retention and Release (Effective 1973-9-1) 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 unlocked 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 1977-4-1) 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 1977-4-1) 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 1977-4-1) 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 1977-4-1) 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.

Continuing safety efforts since 1977

The new Federal Standards of 1977 for school buses represented a quantum leap in school bus safety. Other efforts and innovations were to continue.

More sophisticated and comprehensive mirror systems were developed to help drivers see children who were off the bus at almost all times.

Crossing gates were developed to help children avoid walking in the area immediately in front of the bus.

Reflective striping, LED and strobe lights were added in the 1980s and 1990s.

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 and wheelchair lifts (typically those with lifts are shorter than their counterparts and are sometimes exclusively assigned to carry disabled children).

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, 2001, 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.

Seat belts in school buses

Very few school buses have seat belts, a standard safety feature in cars and light duty passenger vehicles. In 1977, as provided in Standard 222, the federal government required passive restraint and structural integrity standards for school buses in lieu 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. This is especially a concern on short buses. Whether lap belts should be required remains very controversial, although they are now required in at least 4 states (New York, New Jersey, California and Florida). However, only one state, New Jersey, requires seat belt usage.

Starting in late 2005, all school buses built new and operating in California are required to have "three-point" safety belts, similar to ones used in the average automobile. The "three-point" belts give greater protection to riders compared to the lap belts. However, the new belts diminish bus capacities, and will require more new buses to be purchased to offset the capacity loss.

Standards for non-school bus operations

Church bus and school bus safety have always been closely related issues in the United States. However, they were linked more closely in the aftermath of a tragedy in 1988.

A bus accident at Carrollton, Kentucky in 1988 involving a church bus which had been originally built and served as a school bus was one of the worst bus accidents in United States history. The driver and 26 other people, many of them teenagers and younger, were killed in the crash and the ensuing fire, and 34 other bus passengers sustained minor to critical injuries. Only six bus passengers were not injured. The many additional victims include hundreds of families. It was quickly realized that many factors came together in tragedy that terrible night. While the immediate cause was the drunk driver of the other vehicle, it was additionally realized that most of the deaths on the bus occurred because the occupants could not evacuate promptly after the impact.

Many things needed action to help prevent or at least reduce the possibility of such a tragedy happening again. It was particularly painful to some participants during the aftermath to realize that a contributing factor to the accident itself and the severity were loopholes between the laws and procedures for a school bus and those involving the same vehicle after it became a church bus.

The accident resulted in a National Transportation Safety Board ( NTSB 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 as tragic as it became was the fact that the bus was of an obsolete design which had been abandoned in school bus construction after April 1, 1977. The unprotected fuel tank was actually mounted outside the frame rails near the front of the bus. This bus was also fueled by gasoline rather than the more typical modern choice of diesel fuel. While pre-1977 buses have long been phased out of most school bus usage, many similar buses are still in use as church buses, which are far less regulated, even today.

Many of the hundreds of various professional individuals who were involved in aspects of 1988 accident and the aftermath hoped that their efforts then and since will continue to contribute to making sure that such a combination of human and vehicle flaws will never result in another tragedy of this magnitude. Yet even over 17 years later, some also feel that it is important to revisit the issues, especially some aspects which could still occur again.

Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia 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.

School busing for racial purposes

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.

After the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 that school and other segregation was an unconstitutional violation of rights granted to all citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment, some districts either voluntarily or by court order introduced new pupil assignment plans to promote racial desegregation. School districts in such situations were spread across virtually the entire United States, including those of many cities such as Los Angeles, California, Boston, Massachusetts, Wichita, Kansas, Cleveland, Ohio, and Norfolk, Virginia.

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 extra-curricular 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.

Statistics

In the United States every year, approximately 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. School buses account for an estimated 10 billion student trips each year. That means approximately 54% of all K-12 students in the country ride yellow school buses.

Retired school buses

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. At least one state prohibits non-school buses from being more than 50% yellow, reserving the color on buses for school buses only. Regulations vary from state to state.

The large quantity of school buses retired from daily service has helped develop a wide range of uses for them.

Market value of a school bus

Although a new school bus commands a much higher price, a used school bus usually only sells for US$5000 on the market, giving the average person the ability of buying one such vehicle.

Passenger transport

  • Many retired school buses are later sold to churches and used to transport elderly and mobility impaired worshipers to and from church services or to transport youth groups for outings to amusement parks, picnics, and visiting other churches.

  • Some used school buses are shipped to Latin America and occasionally Africa for use as municipal transportation, transportation of migrant farmworkers, or even rededicated to pupil transport.

  • In some cases, 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, in all aspects completely safe, but they usually lack the features of newer buses including air conditioning and tinted windows. After a certain amount of time has elapsed however, even substitute buses are completely retired and may be used for the aforementioned purposes.

Non-passenger use

  • Some former school buses have been converted to mobile stores, workshops, ATV haulers, or are used for general hauling as a form of medium duty truck when short distances and/or moderate speeds constitute the operating environment.

  • On occasion, retired school buses are used for auto racing, often re-painted with garish designs, as a comic attraction at county fairs in the USA. They are also popular in some forms of demolition derby, often demolished at the same fair after having raced.

  • Inoperable buses or bus bodies have often become storage units.

  • Some retired school buses get purchased by school bus enthusiasts and get restored into brand new pristine condition.

  • Used school buses are sometimes put to use as woodsheds

Hydrogen school buses

Buses and school buses were one of the first vehicles to be converted to run on hydrogen. This is because they could pack a big engine, and most hydrogen engines (which are not so big) need a lot of storage space for the hydrogen itself. Nowadays more and more school buses are transformed to run on this alternate fuel.

Required engine power

Because of the size of a school bus, a more powerful engine is needed, providing between 185 to 275 hp (140 to 205 kW). This is an interesting note, especially if one wishes to replace his school bus with another engine (running on alternative energy, such as hydrogen or compressed air).

School bus manufacturers

1980-2000: Industry consolidation, fallen flags

In 1980, in the U.S., there were six major school bus body companies building large school buses, mostly making bodies for chassis from four truck manufacturers, joined by two coach-type school bus builders on the West Coast. With the baby boom years which swelled the ranks of school children in the past, 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.

On the West Coast, Crown Coach closed its doors in Chino, California in March of 1991. The property buildings are completely gone, leaving a unwanted and very dirty piece of land. GE, who still does own the rights to Crown, can't sell it. Product rights and tooling were sold to Carpenter, and resulted in some Crown-by-Carpenter products in the 1990s. The other builder, Gillig Brothers, dropped school bus production, but successfully developed a transit bus market to replace it, and remained in business. By mid 2000, there were only three body builders left, and a corporate consolidation of two of those with truck manufacturers reduced the model selection further.

Ward later became Amtran,and then was purchased by International Truck.They refused to sell chassis to other body manufacturers or inflated price so high that there were no options for body builders but to merge or go out of business..

Several new small bus manufacturers developed niche markets during this period. However, despite several notable attempts at revival, long-term body company industry names such as Superior, Ward, Wayne, Carpenter, and Crown-by-Carpenter all became fallen flags (in that order).

Wayne's inventory was purchased by Carpenter and some of their parts were obviously used on the Crown By Carpenter buses.A defect in the roof welds was later found on all buses manufactured after 1994. A lot of school systems were forced to retire buses early and Carpenter had been out of business for sometime leaving districts no recourse.

Current school bus manufacturers

Historical school bus manufacturers

(all are now either defunct or discontinued manufacturing of school buses)

Models

Note: this is a very partial and incomplete listing of some models of school buses in the United States, either current, or former.

See also

Notes

External links

Bus transport | School bus | Transportation in Canada | Transportation in the United States

Schulbus | Autobus szkolny | Skolbuss

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "School bus".

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