The impact of a fire in a school bus is wide ranging.  We have seen numerous reports just recently of fires occurring on school buses.  Issues can include passenger safety, costs to schools, loss of passenger capacity, disruption of traffic and public relation issues.  Bus fire suppression systems ensure vehicles and buses remain safe.

Firetrace systems offer a unique approach to fire protection to many of fire prone areas of the buses.  These systems detect fire using the proprietary red Firetrace Detection Tubing (FDT).  This heat sensitive polymer tubing is pressurized and reacts to the heat and radiant energy of a fire by bursting, thus activating the fire suppression system.

Firetrace detection tubing is ideal for fire detection in buses as it tolerates the vibration, dirt and temperature extremes.  These systems are pneumatically operated therefore require no power from the vehicle to operate and do not place additional strain on the vehicle’s electrical system.

To get more information about Firetrace Suppression Systems, call Carolina Bus Sales at 864-461-7088.

With school starting all over the nation, pupil transportation professionals have been busy getting not only school buses ready for transporting children to school, but the drivers themselves.  The following are just a few of the ways school districts are prepping the drivers for the new school year:

Finalizing bus routes

Receiving brand new buses as approved for purchase

Conducting required school bus drivers courses on new policies and safety practices

Scheduling physicals for drivers

Completing CPR, AFD (defibrillator), and EpiPen training

Scheduling school bus safety drills

Revising and updating driver manuals and handbooks

Recruiting new drivers

Training newly hired drivers

There are many other ways school districts prep their drivers for the beginning of the school year.  There is no such thing as too much training and prep to ensure that our children get to and from school and activities safely.

It’s that time of year again – already!  And the same concerns are cropping up again this year.  Where are we going to find school bus drivers to run the routes?

Districts with more than 50 million children are worried how they will get these children to and from school.  The country has a shortage of school bus drivers which 22 percent of private bus contractors call “severe”,  according to a recent survey by School Bus Fleet Magazine.  According to the survey, five percent of school bus contractors are “desperate” to find drivers.

Why a shortage?  The director of transportation for the Douglas County school district in Colorado stated that school bus driving is not as attractive a job as it may have been recently.  “The economy is better so people are going back to jobs they had done previously or they find the need to stay at home,” Donna Grattino told ABC News Denver affiliate KMGH.

The Denver-area district still needs at least 40 more drivers and is considering enlisting stay-at-home parents to fill the gap by allowing them to bring their preschool age children with them on the job.  But becoming a bus driver can take time.  The process of getting a commercial drivers license, drug tests, background checks, and training can take up to 12 weeks.  According to School Bus Fleet Magazine, the average pay nationwide for school bus drivers is $16.90 an hour, up from $16.24 in 2016.

The National Association for Pupil Transportation (NAPT) has partnered with consulting firm The Dash Group to create a customized way for employers to assess a school bus driver’s capacity for sound judgement.

The School Bus Driver Safety and Risk Index is designed to measure a current or prospective driver’s decision-making ability.  The assessment is available online and is expected to take most job applicants no more that 10 to 12 minutes to complete.  Afterward, employers receive a confidential, downloadable report.

According to NAPT, the report gives employees a sense of the candidate’s abilities and capacities in such areas as problem solving, dependability, work ethic, dealing with difficult people and situations, concentration, and following directions.

NAPT said that this index can be used as the first-line assessment in hiring.  If a driver scores poorly, the employer can save money by not investing in DMV checks, background checks, or drug screenings.

TomTom, a leader in navigation and mapping products, and GSPi, a top provider of cloud-based telematics solutions, have combined their technologies to create a more comprehensive offering for school bus operators.

The two top companies have introduced the TomTom BRIDGE with GSPi software.  The product will allow bus drivers to easily track hours of service, assign drivers, change routes, create geofences (geographic boundaries), view and manage driver history, and schedule vehicle maintenance.

The TomTom BRIDGE is a navigation device built for professional drivers that seamlessly links business applications with TomTom maps, traffic and navigation software.  It provides a friendly, out-of-the-box solution to help meet the ELD (Electronic Logging Device) mandate in the United States and Canada.

The latest model from Collins Bus aims to enhance accessibility for students who use wheelchairs.  The new Low-Floor bus integrates a wheelchair ramp with three floor plans, with positions for one, two or three wheelchair passengers.  The bus does not use a wheelchair lift or multiple-step entrances, but a ramp that easily folds up and down for access..

The Low-Floor is built on a front-wheel drive chassis and is powered by a 3.6 liter gasoline V6 engine.  Among the options for the Low-Floor bus are three-point seats, backup camera, plywood flooring and many others.

These Low-Floor buses will ensure students have access to an equal education before, during and after school.

When it comes to purchasing a used school bus, you may already know a lot more than you think about making the right choice. Executives seasoned in both buying and selling in the used bus market say the experience bears a resemblance to a used car purchase.

One of the most important things to look for is a healthy engine with a lot of life left. The chassis is a big consideration – its where you have the biggest cost factor, according to Gavin Berwald, transportation supervisor for Beachwood (Ohio) City Schools. Uncover the past of the school bus if you can.

It is not uncommon for an older bus to have had an engine or transmission replaced, which changes the effective age as indicated by the mileage report. Documentation of these replacements is very important. You need to know if the replacement was new or used and how long ago the replacement was made to help determine the life of the vehicle.

An inspection by your mechanic can help in making a decision on which bus is good for your company, school or church. Buyers should also check state and federal guidelines before purchasing a used school bus, which includes whether or not your company will need a driver with a commercial driver’s license. Financing is another consideration. Most companies will have a financing plan in place for any potential buyers, with various options available through the dealer or other financial institutions.

Of course, I recommend buying your school bus from Carolina Bus Sales in Chesnee, SC !!!

On Tuesday of this week, WYFF News in Greenville, SC, broadcast a report on the age of the average school bus on the road in South Carolina. They reported that the state has buses that are as old as 30 years, and some have even been put out of service. But the bigger concern about these buses is the potential to catch on fire and has many of the SC Legislature asking for more money to replace these buses.

WYFF spoke with the SC Department of Education who told them that since 1995, 108 buses have caught fire or have overheated. At the last legislative session in June, Governor Henry McMaster vetoed roughly 17.5 million dollars in bus funds. Greenville county leaders say the primary problem they see with older buses is the rate at which they break down which causes kids to wait longer for buses and are late for school or activities. The call center spends a lot of time receiving calls and sending out a massive amount of phone calls to parents informing them of the buses late schedule.

Typically one million dollars buys around 12 buses. In addition to the SC Department of Education asking for an override to the veto, they are asking for $57 million of lottery funds to replace the remaining 1995 and 1996 transit buses. These are the buses that are commonly associated with the chance of fire and overheating.

UPDATE – The House voted Tuesday afternoon to override Gov. McMaster’s vetoes for school bus funding and send the education agency more than $20 million in state lottery money to replace hundreds of decades-old, fire-prone buses. The House votes sent the question to the Senate, which is expected to put this on their schedule. If the senate completes the overrides, the Department of Education will immediately order about 250 buses. They should arrive within six months, making them available for the next school year. We will keep you up to date.

Hundreds of fire-hazard school buses will continue to take SC students to school this fall.  The state’s Republican-controlled Legislature approved spending $20.5 million to replace about 250 of those buses with new ones.  However, state education officials say they cannot order the new buses because Gov. Henry McMaster vetoed the money.  The money would have come from a surplus of the SC Lottery which McMaster states should be used solely for the scholarships the lottery was created to fund.   Lawmakers are refusing to come back to Columbia to override the veto.

Republican leaders say the SC Department of Education could use other money to order buses.  Surplus money could pay for them “before the start of the school year, if it truly were a priority,” SC House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, said.  The state’s schools agency  says it already has used some money set aside for other purposes to buy new school buses.  But the Department of Education has stated that the majority of these other monies are designated by lawmakers to be spent on poor rural school districts that are suing the state.

SC Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman stated that 156 new buses were purchased from fuel and operations savings just recently and replacement of the aging bus fleet has been a top priority since she took office in 2015.

Meanwhile, some Democrats are pushing for legislators to return to Columbia to approve spending the money to replace the buses.  House Speaker Lucas has stated that it would waste taxpayers funds to call the Legislature back into session.  At this time, lawmakers have no plans to return to Columbia to deal with the vetoes  They could possibly wait until the next session which starts January 9, 2018.

South Carolina’s aging buses are proving to be a fire hazard for SC students.  Seventeen buses have caught fire or dangerously overheated since August, 2015.  In some cases, children were on board.  Despite the recent purchase of new buses, the state still has a ways to go.

You might want to buy copper stock as this is a good time to get into the market!  A new study by IDTechEx indicates that demand for the natural resource will increase nine-fold by 2027.  It should be noted that the International Copper Association commissioned the study.

Copper is already a widely used mineral in vehicles.  The article states that internal combustion engines require 23 kg of copper, but that figure is doubling and tripling.  Today’s hybrid electric vehicles need 40 kg.  Plug-ins need even more at 69 kg.  Electric school buses need between 224 kg and 369 kg of copper, depending on the size of the battery.

Electric vehicles use a substantial amount of copper in their batteries and in the windings and copper rotors used.  But copper demand  doesn’t stop there.  The study says charging infrastructures as well as roof-mounted solar panels also would  require lots of copper.