First of all school buses are designed well and serves its purpose. School buses are the primary mode of student transportation in the United States.
Over half the student population in the country rely upon school buses for transportation to school and back to home. It is estimated that over 26 million students travel in school buses.
Transportation wasn’t the same in old times. Some of the first school buses were carriages that were drawn by horses which were called kid hacks or school hacks.
These were made by Wayne works around the year 1886. There were even sledges and farm wagons that were used by students to get to school or sometimes even walk to school through the snow covered lands.
With the popularity of automobiles rising in 1914 the same Wayne works moved on to automobile chassis to help students reach schools faster. With the introduction of these buses students sat on the perimeter of the bus facing towards each other rather that towards the front as they do today.
It was later on that the Blue Bird Company took an effort to create a design for the bus that resembles the buses of today even though they had a long way to go.
Some of you might wonder why the colour of a school bus is yellow. It has been yellow since its inception. This makes it easy to distinguish it from other vehicles on the road. The yellow colour is recorded as Federal Standard No. 595a,
Colour 13432 with both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Buses usually operate in the morning and evening so the colour is better visible during these times.
It is supposed that the colour helps drivers to notice and slow down their vehicles keeping in mind there are children on board.
Why School Bus Design Have Remained Unchanged
School bus designs are made to safeguard the children on board. Parents worry about their child’s safety and the modes of transportation they take to reach school or come back from school.
So there is a genuine need for standardizing the way children travel. The present mode of transportation is satisfactory and safer. School buses are typically safer as they are not driven very fast.
According to the studies by National Academy of Sciences and National Transportation Safety Board school buses have closely spaced seats which are shock absorbent and are able to protect children in case there is an accident.
Little Bit About TrackSchoolBus
Various apps can be used to monitor the daily activities of students, drivers and attendants. These help to know what is happening to your child when he leaves for school and comes back from school.
Parent App – TrackSchoolBus has come up with the parent app so that parents can make use of this app to build a rapport with the drivers. The app lets you get to know when a bus reaches a pick up point or the drop point.
Parents can also monitor the speed of the bus. If the bus is being driven recklessly they are immediately notified regarding this. You can mark a leave for your pupil using this app.
You neither have to call the driver or the school management. With track school bus’s app parents are notified regarding the real-time location of the child and also the route that is followed by the school bus.
Driver Console App – Using the driver app from TrackSchoolBus drivers get to communicate the route taken by them and the number of stops during the trip with parents as well as school management.
This helps them to take the shortest route possible which is beneficial to both the drivers and the school management as this saves a lot of fuel and time. They get to pass information with the transport manager.
Using the driver’s app by Track School Bus, transport managers can give drivers instruction regarding best route that can be taken by looking at the traffic on each road.
School Bus Attendant App – Bus attendants will have an app that has all the student details like pick up and drop points. This helps them to work more efficiently. Another added feature for the TrackSchoolBus app is that the birthdays of the students will be notified to the bus attendants.
With this the attendants can wish the pupil on his birthday which creates a better rapport with the students. They get to know which students have boarded the bus and those who haven’t. Using the Track School Bus App they can contact the parents to check if the students are on leave or if they have failed to board the bus.
School Transport Manager App – In some cases the schools have a transport manager or the school bus contract is given to a third party in which case the fleet is managed by a transport manager.
By using the TrackSchoolBus app, the transport manager can track the school buses from anywhere using the app. The transport manager will be notified regarding route traffic, unfavourable weather conditions, bus break down, or anything that is related to the vehicle status.