Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-73). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1967. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

This study compares and contrasts operational expenses of district-owned to privately owned school bus services operated in Wichita, Clay, Montague, Jack, Wilbarger, Throckmorton, Baylor, Palo Pinto, Young, and Archer counties within the state of Texas.

Orange County, FL has been experiencing ozone concentrations in the past several years which in some cases exceeded the national and state standards. The high concentration of ground level ozone can cause a variety of health problems including chest pain, coughing, throat irritation, and congestion or it can worsen bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma. Other effects include reduction of agricultural crop and commercial forest yields, lower growth and survivability of tree seedlings, and higher susceptibility of plant to diseases, pests and other stresses such as harsh weather. The ozone generation rate is directly related to the ambient concentration of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic carbons (VOCs). These two air pollutants, mostly produced from combustion of fossil fuels, react with oxygen to form ozone in presence of sunlight. In urban areas, ozone generation rate can be decreased by reduction of ozone precursors, NOx and VOCs. The Air Quality Research group of University of Central Florida proposed that one of the emission reduction strategies be for school bus fleets in the area. School buses were chosen because of their important impact on ambient air quality in general and on student health in particular. There were about 473,000 school buses in the 2004-05 school year nationwide which traveled for a total mileage of about 4 billion miles in that year. Orange County Public School (OCPS) system owns about 1400 school buses which traveled about 17 million miles in 2005-06 school year, serving 71000 students. The use of diesel fuels, Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD, diesel fuel containing 15ppm sulfur) and Biodiesel (B20, a mixture of 20% biodiesel and 80% ULSD), were chosen as the first proposed action to be studied. Also the effects of transportation parameters, average speed and idling time on fleet emissions were selected to be reviewed. This report reviews the fuel option and transportation parameters, effects on school bus fleet emissions and it does a comparison analysis in order to show advantages and disadvantages of each fuel. The Conventional Diesel (CD) and ULSD emissions were estimated by using MOBILE6.2 model, and effects of B20 on emissions were derived from published studies. It was found that using B20 or ULSD can reduce the emissions significantly for the most of major pollutants but in the case of NOx, the percentage changes is not certain yet and more investigation is required. Emissions vary for different average speeds and 27 miles per hour can be defined as the optimum average speed. Also reduction of idling time is an excellent control option for decreasing emissions, and should be considered for OCPS.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1969. / Title from title page screen, viewed Aug. 24, 2004. Dissertation Committee: Benjamin C. Hubbard (chair), Alan Hickrod, Alic Ebel. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-132) and abstract. Also available in print.

School districts providing busing services for students who live too far to walk to school. In many districts a fleet of school buses is used in sequence to transport high school students, then middle school students, and then elementary school students. The result is that high school classes must start much earlier in the morning than the elementary school, and buses may traverse similar routes three times each morning and afternoon. In light of recent research on the benefits of later high school start times and the need to control transportation costs, school districts are seeking efficient school bus routing plans that meet student needs at low cost. This study uses 2018 data for schools in Northampton, Massachusetts, to identify the potential to achieve two objectives: 1) start the high school classes as late as possible in the day, and 2) minimize the cost of busing. The proposed procedure makes use of existing school bus data to optimize bus routes, which can be applicable for smaller cities. A revised routing plan that mixes high school and middle school students on the same buses allows the high school to start 30 minutes later while reducing total school bus operations.

The problem of this study is to determine the efficiency of the transportation systems of eight Class B schools of Wise County, Texas.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of video monitoring devices (VMDs) in reducing incidents of student misbehavior on middle school buses. It was hypothesized that the presence of VMDs would decrease the frequency of behavioral problems encountered by school bus drivers, decrease the number of discipline referrals issued by the drivers, and improve the drivers’ perception of student behavior. The study utilized an experimental design with random assignment of drivers to treatment and control groups. These groups were formed from a population of 282 drivers who serve ten middle schools for Virginia Beach City Public Schools. In the summer of 1993, through a randomization procedure, VMDs were installed on 100 school buses to form the treatment group. The remaining 182 school buses did not receive installation and were designated as the control group. All drivers maintained a daily log of the number of discipline problems encountered on their routes for three 15-day intervals. Statistical analysis revealed a significantly lower number of problems in the treatment group. Secondary analysis indicated that the use of VMDs was ineffective on morning routes but effective on afternoon routes. Also, there was a significantly lower number of discipline problems in the treatment group regardless of the day of the week. As the drivers established rapport and control, both groups experienced a decline in the number of discipline problems throughout the experiment. The treatment group, however, recorded a significantly lower number of problems during each of the three 15-day intervals. This indicates that the students did not become desensitized to the presence of the VMD’s over the five-month experiment. At the conclusion of the study, drivers in the treatment group rated the behavior of their students more highly than the rating of students by drivers in the control group. A tally of the number of discipline referrals issued by the drivers revealed that the members of the treatment group experienced fewer severe disciplinary problems. Finally, multiple regression indicated that of all independent variables, group membership is the best predictor of a number of behavioral problems, discipline referrals issued, and driver perception of student behavior. / Ed. D.

In 2009, Cobb County School District (CCSD) and Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) received a competitive federal grant to implement an idle and tailpipe emission reduction program in the CCSD bus fleet. The project is designed to reduce school bus idling by installing GPS and idle detection systems in the bus, providing bus dispatchers with a web system to track vehicle activity and idling in real-time, and to automatically shut off the engine when idle thresholds at specific locations are exceeded. A team of Georgia Tech researchers is implementing the anti-idle program and estimating the emissions and fuel savings from the project using approved modeling methods. This thesis presents the results of the emission modeling process, as well as an analysis of baseline school bus idling activity. EPA's MOVES mobile source emission model was used to develop emission rates for school buses for each operating mode, which are defined by the instantaneous vehicle speed, acceleration and scaled tractive power. Local data for Cobb County and Atlanta were collected and input into the MOVES model. The pollutants modeled include carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter (coarse and fine), oxides of nitrogen, and gaseous hydrocarbons. The vehicle activity data collected through the GPS and communications equipment installed in the buses were classified into the operating mode bins for each second of recorded data, and multiplied by the corresponding emission rate to determine the total modal emissions before and after project implementation. Preliminary results suggest that thousands of gallons of diesel fuel and thousands of dollars can be saved with the project, improving overall fleet fuel efficiency by 2%, as well as reducing emissions in some categories by as much as 38%.

This study was made of the school districts in the East Texas oil field in Rusk and Gregg Counties. These school districts have a dense rural population, the majority of whom are engaged in some type of oil field work. Financially, these school districts are considered the wealthiest in the state, and in general are similar to most oil field sections in the South. A total of twelve different transportation systems, operating sixty-five buses, transporting 8,758 school children were studied. In this study, efficient methods of transporting school children, methods of administering transportation, contracting, types of roads, qualifications of drivers, equipment, and cost in these oil field districts were considered.