[Webmaster
Note: This Concept Paper was sent to the American Public Transit Association by
Harlan Tull, president of the National Association of State Director's of Pupil
Transportation Services, in October, 1995.]
A Concept
Paper
TRANSIT'S
ROLE IN STUDENT TRANSPORTATION
(Partnerships in the Transportation of Students)
Executive Summary
The U.S. pupil transportation community is united in its belief that the safest
means of transporting schoolchildren is a separate transportation system designed
and operated specifically to meet their unique needs. This system relies upon:
Clearly
distinguishable vehicles, equipped with special safety features, which are afforded
preferential treatment by other motorists;
Specially trained drivers concerned with only a single ridership segment;
Specially
designed student education programs integrated into the general school curriculum
and presented regularly to school bus riders; and
Specially designed routes and schedules which serve limited destinations and are
often restricted to low speed arterial and collector streets.
The value and effectiveness of these characteristics are well documented by the
pupil transportation community's outstanding safety record. Nevertheless, funds
to sustain pupil transportation are being slowly eroded, triggering two consequences:
(1)
The quality of pupil transportation is gradually being compromised by driver shortages,
deferred vehicle replacement, increased minimum walking distances to schools and,
most recently, reliance on user fees to cover all or part of transportation costs.
(2)
The abandonment of school bus service for pupil transportation and the transfer
of their riders to public transit services, where they exist, and parents and/or
community volunteers.
The characteristics of pupil transportation's funding institutions are accelerating
these two trends. Without Federal financial assistance, pupil transportation is
supported by the same funds used to provide teachers, administrators, supplies,
materials and other educational resources. Further, decisions about funding allocations
are generally made by non-transportation officials with a broad range of responsibilities
and priorities. Transferring school bus riders to public transit services helps
to address a school district's financial problems.
Having had the luxury of a unique transportation system at their disposal, often
with entire careers devoted to operating it, pupil transportation professionals
at all levels are naturally reluctant to relinquish their responsibilities or
even acknowledge the many changes which have already begun to unfold as perhaps
inevitable. To feel otherwise would be inconsistent with both the dedication and
effectiveness of these individuals. At the same time, leaders of the pupil transportation
community, particularly in states with large urbanized areas, are beginning to
acknowledge that a substantial number of students already ride transit services
to and from school, and the number of such students is growing. In California,
for example, as much as one third of all pupil transportation is provided by transit.
It has been estimated by the transit community that roughly fifteen percent of
all ridership consists of home-to-school trips.
Acknowledging transit as a major provider of home-to-school trips, leaders of
the pupil transportation community recognize that criticism of transit service
and the continued denunciation of its right to transport schoolchildren is counterproductive,
and unrealistic. It is time for the pupil transportation and transit communities
to join together and mutually develop operational standards for the transportation
of students on transit buses. It is in this spirit of cooperation the comments
below are intended.
Formulas and Mechanisms for Cooperation and Information Sharing:
The pupil transportation community has spent decades refining the safety and quality
of its service to its constituents. Because most of these constituents are provided
with separate transportation services, the transit community directed most of
its attention to the needs of a broad cross-section of riders, including children
using transit services largely for trips other than to and from school. With the
Americans with Disabilities Act, the transit community has focused considerable
attention on a subset of its general ridership. Given the extraordinary financial
and technical constraints placed on it by the ADA while receiving no increase
in funding assistance commensurate with it, the transit industry has demonstrated
its adaptability to special circumstances and special needs.
In contrast to requirements of the ADA, which led to increased costs far out of
proportion to increased ridership, the accommodation of schoolchildren will have
precisely the opposite effect:
* Large volumes of able-bodied schoolchildren (most disabled students use "special
education" paratransit services) make relatively short trips to and from a single
destination. Such trips tend to cross-subsidize other transit trips.
* The A.M. peak period for school trips coincides with the A.M. peak period for
other transit riders. However, the P.M. peak period for schoolchildren begins
much earlier and, in fact, ends about the same time the P.M. peak period for other
transit riders generally begins. With increased student ridership, this pattern
will have the effect of increasing the number of peak period service hours, greatly
improving productivity.
* Unlike wheelchair lifts and the structural and spatial modifications needed
to accommodate disabled riders, inclusion of those safety features needed to enhance
safety of schoolchildren will incur only minor costs with respect to the increased
ridership and reduction in liability exposure which will accompany them.
* Many of
the improvements could be made to transit in order to accommodate schoolchildren
would also provide significant benefits to other transit riders. These improvements
range from forward-facing, computerized seats (which greatly increase seating
capacity and enhance the desirability of service for non-transit-dependents) and
padded modesty panels to on-board video surveillance cameras, "high tech" mirror
and sensor systems and fire retardant seat materials.
* The extensive training provided to student riders already exists and can be
reoriented toward transit services, in many cases at no cost to transit agencies.
Similarly, well established and effective driver training programs and passenger
management techniques can be integrated into existing transit driver training
programs. In both cases, experienced professionals qualified to conduct such training
already exist in the community, and their inclusion in transit operating structures
will facilitate the transfer of student riders to transit service, where it occurs.
Future Generations
of Transit Riders
Apart from helping alleviate the financial problems currently besetting many school
districts, the provision of transit service to schoolchildren will help introduce
new generations of potential transit riders to these services. Particularly with
the continuing erosion of the economic landscape, it is increasingly likely a
significant number of these riders will spend much or all of their adult lives
as transit dependents. For those schoolchildren not so destined, ridership on
public transit service will provide them with an opportunity to experience it
and learn how to integrate it into their lives.
Such expectations for the future at first appear naive against a backdrop where
only two or three percent of all urban work trips are provided by transit service.
However, this is a uniquely American phenomenon. Throughout Europe and Asia, including
numerous countries with comparable or higher standards of living than the United
States, transit services are utilized by riders representing a complete cross-section
of the economic spectrum. Often unnoticed amidst this phenomenon is the fact that
what makes these services affordable and permits them to reach the critical mass
at which they are usable by virtually everyone is their inclusion of children
on these services and the thickening of density which accompanies it.
While transit
services around the world have demonstrated their compatibility with the needs
of children, U.S. transit services have the potential to serve these riders even
better, since the safety practices and features of the pupil transportation community
are available for integration into transit service. By incorporating many of the
characteristics of pupil transportation into transit service, and integrating
it with proven practices from transportation the communities around the world
which have extensively adapted their systems to accommodate student riders, U.S.
transit systems could have "the best of both worlds."
Choices and Priorities
The goal of adapting transit service to accommodate schoolchildren is not synonymous
with the preference that all such riders mode split to transit. As acknowledged
earlier, the continued provision of school bus service to all students is clearly
preferable. Such service offers advantages to its riders which transit cannot.
At the same time, the mode split of student riders from school bus to transit
service need not involve the entire spectrum of riders from kindergarten through
twelfth grade. Nor should it. Both the school bus and transit communities must
recognize certain priorities--particularly the fact that, because of their physical,
psychological and perceptual limitations, certain riders cannot be accommodated
nearly as safely by transit as by school bus service. These groups include children
attending elementary school (through middle school and/or junior high), developmentally
disabled students and many physically challenged students. Just as pupil transportation
officials must acknowledge that transit safety can be improved for students outside
these groups, the transit community must acknowledge the limits to which transit
can be adapted for certain groups of students. If and where funds are limited,
priorities must be established to preserve separate pupil transportation services
for those students for whom it is essential.
A far more difficult set of choices arises from the fact that only urbanized and
suburbanized areas have transit services. Apart from the sensitivity to certain
classes of students identified above, priorities must be established to preserve
pupil transportation where alternatives do not exist. Distributing funds according
to such priorities is far easier to demand than effect, largely because such distribution
must be undertaken at the state level, whereas most pupil transportation funds
are provided at the local level. In states like California, Florida, Washington,
Illinois, New York, Michigan and Ohio, where urban interests are offset by an
almost equal amount of "downstate" or "upstate" interests, effecting such choices
in the political arena may be challenging, if not daunting. But in a world with
limited funds, such choices must indeed be made.
Developing Tools for Change
Were one to integrate the collective knowledge and wisdom of the U.S. pupil transportation
community with the enormous breadth, scope and experience of the U.S. transit
communities, one would have a formidable body of knowledge. Unfortunately, such
knowledge has not been assembled and integrated. While pupil transportation officials
may have enormous knowledge and understanding about separate pupil transportation,
they have not had an opportunity to adapt and apply it to transit service. Nor
have many transit services sought to do so. While the information to create the
tools needed to provide guidance to transit agencies certainly exists, activities
designed to assemble and refine it, and evaluate its applicability, lie before
us.
The effort to assemble, demonstrate and codify the applicability of various practices
and features of pupil transportation to transit service can serve a number of
purposes apart from the improvement of transit services for schoolchildren and
other riders. This effort can help acquaint the leaders and non-leaders of the
pupil transportation and transit communities with one another. It can help identify
the players at the state and local levels involved in both spheres of transportation
who must work effectively together in order to optimize the safety and efficiency
of transportation service for student riders. It can help identify the numerous
qualified individuals currently engaged in the design, supervision, management,
training and operation of pupil transportation services--from transportation directors
to drivers--who may be available to assist and/or work for transit agencies and
their contractors if and when they assume the provision of transportation to schoolchildren.
It will result in measurable improvements in transit safety. And it will help
to reduce transit agencies' exposure to liability, which could escalate dramatically
unless exhaustive steps are taken to optimize the degree to which U.S. transit
systems meet or exceed to the extent possible, the safety standards of the school
transportation community where the needs of children have been thoroughly and
systematically integrated into system design and operations.
Conclusions: The working relationship between the pupil transportation and transit
communities suggested here will not come easily. Much of the cooperation needed
from the pupil transportation community will come begrudgingly, or possibly not
at all. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the leaders within this community to begin
the effort of reconciliation now. In response, it is fitting and necessary that
responsible members of the transit community acknowledge the expertise available
from members of the pupil transportation community and ask sincerely that the
leaders of that community share it.
Only with such mutual outreach and partnership can the needed changes occur. Through
these efforts we can discharge our responsibilities to an already large and growing
segment of transit riders. With such an approach we can fully and efficiently
utilize our respective expertise to optimize the safety and productivity of transportation
service to students and other riders. With cooperation we can design, implement
and operate transportation services at a level of efficiency we can afford. And
with this philosophy we can work together to achieve these important changes.
Prepared
by the Transit Use Committee 13th National Conference on School Transportation
Ron Kinney, Chairman
[Editor's note: Following are two resolutions about public transit that were approved
by delegates to the Twelfth National School Bus Standards Conference in May, 1995.
The resolutions were included in the Concept Paper by the author of the Paper.]
Resolution
on Public Transit Whereas, the Safety of School Bus Transportation is recognized
for its outstanding record, and; Whereas, throughout the United States school
students are transported to and from school on two distinctly different types
of buses ... the yellow school bus and a public transit bus, and; Whereas, federal
and state legislative bodies by their mandates have set higher safety standards
for school buses and school bus operations, for the protection of school students,
and; Whereas, by these mandates, a double standard for the protection and transportation
of school students has been created between school bus and public transit bus
carriers, and; Whereas, school students are being forced to seek non-school bus
transportation as a result of school districts eliminating school bus service,
and; Whereas, we the delegates of the Twelfth National Standards Conference on
School Transportation believe this action does not serve the best interest of
America's school students; Therefore, be it resolved 1. That the delegates of
the Twelfth National Standard's Conference on School Transportation strongly urge
Congress to pass legislation to provide all school students with the safest bus
transportation environment; 2. That service provided by public transit that transport
school children "to and from school" should meet or exceed the National Standards
for equipment and operations adopted by the Twelfth National Conference; 3. That
a copy of resolutions be forwarded to appropriate state and federal officials
and agencies.
RESOLUTION on Public Transit vs. School Bus Home-to-School Injuries/Fatalities
Whereas, the nation's greatest resource is its children; their safety and protection
are our highest priority and their education is our investment in the future;
and Whereas, Public Transit is assuming a role in home-to-school transportation
of school pupils nation-wide; Whereas, Public Transit operators do not routinely
separate student home-to-school/school-to-home injuries/fatalities from other
passenger injuries/fatalities; Therefore, be it resolved: 1. That the interim
committee of the Thirteenth National Standards Conference appoint an ad hoc committee
to initiate a research study of the injury/fatality rate of public transit buses
versus school buses. 2. That this research study be completed during an appropriate
period of time to reflect statistically significant findings. 3. That the results
of this research study be reported to the appropriate writing committee of the
Thirteenth National Conference.
