Yellow school buses

[Russ B]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4095276.stm

I'm sure I've missed the point here, but why would a yellow bus be any more effective for picking up children than the buses they currently use?

I'm sure it can't be about the colour so what are they proposing? Buses that pick up kids on the way to school from designated pick-up points?

Erm......do we not already have these?

[punky]

It is probably to warn people around the bus that there are kids about.

A few years ago, all private buses that carried sole groups of children had to have a big yellow and black sticker on the back indicating that fact. I guess they didn't think it was that prominent.

[Rob]

It's been working quite well around my way now for a couple of years. Indeed they are I beleive expanding. I think though parents contribute towards them.

In my day school buses existed, but they were generally clapped out run down things. They were also only available to those who had some considerable way to get to their nearest school. These have an advantage of being purpose designed for the job, conspicous which helps safety cos drivers will know there could be kids nearby about to run into the road.

I think the yellow buses were also going to have a chaparone type bod on board, so the drive concentrates on the road, the chaparone, gets the kids to behave. Allocated seats stop silly disputes too.

Anything that might encourage mass transport rather than parents each using their biggest possible 4WD to take little johnny 100yards to school must be a good idea.

[fireman328]

It seems a large capital investment to provide buses which can only be used twice a day because they will be colour coded as school buses and therefore cannot be used out of school hours as this would defeat the object of specially designating them by colour.
The buses would also be laid up, depreciating, during school holidays for the same reason.
I can't see any reason why ordinary buses, with the triangle signs displayed, should be used.

[Jules]

I suppose it had to happen as it seems every thing from the States makes it's way over here sooner or later

[Rob]

Originally Posted by fireman328

It seems a large capital investment to provide buses which can only be used twice a day because they will be colour coded as school buses and therefore cannot be used out of school hours as this would defeat the object of specially designating them by colour.
The buses would also be laid up, depreciating, during school holidays for the same reason.
I can't see any reason why ordinary buses, with the triangle signs displayed, should be used.

Realistically though any vehicle used for school bussing in more or less dedicated to that task anyway. Public transport and private coasch hire would find it very diificult to arrange their capacity for services or clients when a large part of their fleet would be unavailable at peak morning, or late afternoon periods, for a large part of the year.

Of course there is no reason why these yellow busses have to be dedicated to the school run replacement. They can also be used for school trips and the like, provided those are daytime or weekends when not needed for their prime task.

[zoombini]

The general public would not like to use school busses after the kids have been in them anyway.

they leave them in a disgusting state.

I think it's more likely a case of just putting on state funded bus journeys for schoolkids again.

The Sutton Trust says a service costing taxpayers £124m a year would reduce the 40 deaths and 900 serious injuries caused annually by the school run.

I think the use of the word "would" should be replaced with "may" as they cannot guarantee that it "would" wave those numbers of deaths etc.
__________________

They were talking about having something like a 50p each way cost to pay.

[Paul]

Originally Posted by MovedGoalPosts

Realistically though any vehicle used for school bussing in more or less dedicated to that task anyway. Public transport and private coasch hire would find it very diificult to arrange their capacity for services or clients when a large part of their fleet would be unavailable at peak morning, or late afternoon periods, for a large part of the year.

Of course there is no reason why these yellow busses have to be dedicated to the school run replacement. They can also be used for school trips and the like, provided those are daytime or weekends when not needed for their prime task.

They use normal busses for school runs here and believe me it's not fun being on the bus at certain times of the day. That and the amount of damage done to them means that he bus company is constantly having to replace windows and seats.
Maybe the Yellow bus system will help other bus users feel a better about uses public transport but maybe they should tell the London Mayor who has just told kids they can travel for free on the buses here until they are 16 (to be increased to 18)

[AndrewJ]

Will not make a difference my local councils buses are all Yellow, and alot of schools use the for part of there transport, and a larger percentage use public First Manchester buses.

[fireman328]

Originally Posted by MovedGoalPosts

Realistically though any vehicle used for school bussing in more or less dedicated to that task anyway. Public transport and private coasch hire would find it very diificult to arrange their capacity for services or clients when a large part of their fleet would be unavailable at peak morning, or late afternoon periods, for a large part of the year.

Of course there is no reason why these yellow busses have to be dedicated to the school run replacement. They can also be used for school trips and the like, provided those are daytime or weekends when not needed for their prime task.

I don't see how that could happen, if they are painted a distinctive yellow, to mark them out as school buses and therefore warrant special consideration they could only be used in term time or when carrying children out of term time. The amount of use for carrying children out of term particulary in the 6 week summer holiday would in my opinion be very limited and valuable assets would be wasted in garage time which would be a depreceating asset.
If however they were standard coaches or buses which had removable signage they could be provided by contractors.
No outllay on a fleet of buses, no outlay on staff to operate the buses, no fuel stocks or fuel cards.
All this would save money for local taxpayers.

[greencreeper]

Originally Posted by Paul

They use normal busses for school runs here and believe me it's not fun being on the bus at certain times of the day. That and the amount of damage done to them means that he bus company is constantly having to replace windows and seats.

Exactly. Methinks the buses will need to be vandal proof otherwise after the first week the windows will be through, seats ripped up, fire fighting equipment discharged or missing, and fixtures and fitting burnt, written on and covered with bits of chewed paper blown through a Biro.

I'm all for the buses - keep the kids off public transport.

[Paul M]

Seems a good idea to me, and a trivial amount of money compared to some other things we are proposing to throw money away on (like writing off debts .......).

[Paul]

Especially if they make sure the busses are equipped with cameras for security purposes. Ken L was looking to use the Oyster cards to identify which students were using what busses in case of trouble, maybe they should incorporate some sort of controls with the new school bus proposal??

[Maggy J]

However one thing occurs to me.Terrorists will have a potential bomb target or hostage target colour coded.

[homealone]

Originally Posted by Incognitas

However one thing occurs to me.Terrorists will have a potential bomb target or hostage target colour coded.

sounds like a good plan