Do some school bus drivers need their passengers (or someone else) to remind them to buckle up? Recent incidents of un-belted drivers falling out of their seat show the need for managers to regularly monitor their drivers’ seat belt use — and to enforce penalties for not complying.

A Transportation Research Board committee was not able to pinpoint data on student transit fatalities because students are not an established subset of transit ridership. This said, a strong transit system can play an important role in high school education.

To protect kids from being left stranded, drivers have to carefully check their bus. Electronic systems can help keep that duty from being neglected.

Last fall’s massive storm on the East Coast created a surge of challenges for student transportation in New York City, from flooded bus yards and offices to fuel and equipment shortages. Here’s an overview of the crisis and how the city’s Office of Pupil Transportation responded.

Genesee Intermediate School District’s transportation consortiums provide service to special-needs and career/technical students in 21 districts. Route, bus maintenance and other efficiencies have saved participating districts $42.4 million since 1997, while service continues to expand. Driver training is extensive.

By establishing policies on which students can receive special-needs bus transportation and providing those students with the exact services they need, transportation departments can operate buses efficiently, creating cost savings for districts. Communication and teamwork between school and transportation personnel are essential to achieving this.

Here are details on some of the new offerings from industry suppliers that were on view and announced during the two-day show in Memphis, Tenn. They include wheelchair lifts, a bus air-conditioning line and an integrated vehicle tracking and routing system.

Whereas past editions of Great Fleets have been short profiles of several outstanding school bus operations, this time we take an in-depth look at one outstanding operation: Tennessee’s Shelby County Schools.

Over the years, the National Transportation Safety Board has become the gold standard for safety recommendations that should be taken to heart, and the agency’s vice chairman, Christopher Hart, is among its best keepers of the flame. There was much to be learned from his excellent presentation at the NAPT Summit in Memphis, Tenn., in October.

Comments in a few of the latest Thomas Built Buses Children’s Choice School Bus Driver of the Year essays pointed to a negative perception of school bus drivers that the children had developed based on what they had read or seen on screen. But, fortunately, the kids’ worries were put to rest when they actually rode the bus and had positive experiences with their drivers.

Two months after becoming president of NAPT, Alex Robinson began running the largest school district transportation department in the nation in December 2011. Since then, her staff at the NYC Office of Pupil Transportation has undergone more than 40 hours of training, and NAPT has grown its connections to relevant organizations around the globe.

The director of transportation and fleet service at Colorado’s Adams 12 Five Star Schools has orchestrated adjustments to school bell times to make busing more efficient, for an overall savings of $900,000. He has also set up mechanic apprenticeship programs to help young people enter the field.

From routing strategies to innovative facilities, speakers at the state directors conference share numerous ideas for enhancing school bus service and training. The NASDPTS membership continues to change, with more state directors announcing their retirement.

A session at the NAPT Summit addresses ways that managers contribute to distracted driving, while a keynote presentation covers fatal school bus accidents caused by inattentive drivers. Handling problematic student behavior is the focus of a panel discussion and a joint presentation. At the trade show, Blue Bird unveils its redesigned Type D buses.

Many actions have resulted in reducing the overall average danger zone fatalities from 29 to 12, but by far the greatest reduction is in front of the bus — a 73% reduction compared to 47% in the other positions. Jeff Cassell, president of the School Bus Safety Co., says he believes the answer is crossing arms.

At Shelby County Schools, enhanced driver training and partnerships with school staff have led to drastic improvements in student behavior on the bus. Here, we spend a day with Director of Transportation Debbie Rike to see how she steers the operation toward success.

The message should be framed not as “this monitoring device is here to make sure you don’t break the rules” but as “this device is here to protect you as well as the students.”

NAPT is going to be very involved in making policymakers at all levels of government aware of the vexing problems created when school bus service is threatened by cuts (in dollars or routes) or eliminated.

Clearly, the job of transportation director is not getting any easier. It takes people with a healthy supply of those “Top Traits” to lead transportation departments through these challenging times.

Now in its 37th year of business, Central States Bus Sales recently strengthened efforts to focus on the school bus manufacturer’s green technologies and provide comprehensive instruction for customers in the process.