School BUSRide spoke with Elisa Hanley, branch manager with the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE), about the most pressing issues in her state; how the Kentucky Department of Education responded to 2020’s challenges, and her thoughts regarding the best path forward. What are the most pressing issues facing student transportation in Kentucky? The number one […]
Recent events – some just this year – have highlighted the need for high-quality fire suppression systems on school buses. Recently in Lincoln County, Kentucky, a quick-thinking bus driver was thankfully able to rescue all 12 kids on his bus when a fire broke out. Another incident occurred in Victor, New York, an electrical fire […]
Our experience clearly demonstrates that the best approach to fire suppression in school bus transportation is using a water-based system as opposed to a dry-powder system. Dry powder is sometimes used in pupil transportation fire suppression systems, but a water-based system is much more efficient at quickly knocking down the flame source and keeping it […]
The most important thing to remember about fire suppression is that suppression is the operative term. If you apply enough heat to any vehicle or fuel, it will burn down regardless of an onboard extinguisher or fire suppression system. No onboard fire suppression system will be 100 percent effective at extinguishing fires 100 percent of […]
Earlier this year the National Safety Transportation Board (NTSB) released a safety report documenting their findings of an investigation into four electric vehicle fires involving high-voltage, lithium-ion batteries. Dr. Peter Lawrence, CDPT, Ed.D., sat down with Dr. Thomas Barth, Survival Factors Investigator and Biomechanics Engineer at the NTSB, to discuss the impacts of this report […]
When I worked as a professional lobbyist, I trained our clients in grassroots advocacy strategies. The credo of our firm focused on enabling average New Yorkers to speak out for themselves as the strongest form of advocacy. We believed that every citizen should learn about and develop their capacity for speaking out about – and […]
BusPatrol announces a new partnership in Maryland with Prince George’s County Public Schools. The School District is the latest to launch a school bus safety program to protect students as they travel to and from school. As part of the program, 1,216 buses at Prince George’s County have been equipped with safety technology including stop-arm […]
Adding another school district looking to electrify its fleet to its growing list of customers, AMPLY Power has been selected to fully manage the charging of electric school buses for the Palermo Union Elementary School District. The zero-emission commitment from the school significantly lowers operating and fuel costs for the district to 50 percent of what it […]
One of the largest school bus makers in the USA, Blue Bird, has joined a first-of-its-kind collaboration with Audi of America, Applied Information and Temple to deploy cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) technology aimed at reducing vehicle hazards that vulnerable schoolchildren face every year. The Fulton County School System in the Greater Atlanta Metropolitan Area has […]
Six South Dakota school districts received Department of Environment & Natural Resources (DENR) funding to purchase emissions-reducing propane autogas school buses. The districts chose Blue Bird Vision Propane buses because they emit fewer greenhouse gases, smog-producing hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides compared with the diesel buses replaced, and propane operating costs are significantly lower. The six […]