CINCINNATI — First Student recently completed its safest year ever, officials said, having significantly reduced accidents, injuries and incidents.

“There are more than 1 billion boarding opportunities each year on First Student school buses,” said Gary Catapano, senior vice president of safety for First Student. “Our most recent safety statistics show that passengers are safer than ever when they board one of our school buses.”

First Student traveled more than 250,385 miles between preventable collisions in fiscal year 2011-12, and the chance for injury on or around a school bus was one in 7,690,000 million miles driven. The chance of a student left unattended on a school bus was one in 100,000,000 over the last year.

“We are very proud of our drivers, attendants and technicians who worked to reduce our incident numbers so dramatically,” Catapano said. “Although this was the safest year in our company’s history, we are constantly learning and improving. We will not rest until our number of incidents is zero.”

First Student attributes this achievement to its strong commitment to employee training, education and face-to-face safety conversations. Officials said the company focuses on maintaining the highest sense of injury and incident prevention awareness in all of its employees’ daily activities.

In other news, First Student has been awarded a five-year contract to provide school transportation for Xenia (Ohio) Community Schools. The company is in the process of hiring the district’s current drivers.

First Student will add 15 new buses to the Xenia fleet and install additional safety features, including GPS, the Child Check-Mate electronic reminder system and crossing gates to allow children to cross in front of the bus at a safe distance.

First Student’s contract with Xenia Community Schools begins in July. It also includes all fleet, routing and maintenance, plus management services.