DRIVING THE INDUSTRY SINCE 1991
South Carolina had the option to adopt a spec from either North Carolina or Georgia as an alternative to building one spec specific to the state. Had South Caroli- na decided to build a specific spec, it would have formed a spec committee made up of DOE employees, shop man- agers, school district employees and legislative members. Bullman said the state decided to spec A/C systems af-
ter some of the larger, affluent school districts proactively chose to install A/C on the buses, using funds from their budgets. Parents were concerned about their children riding in old buses lacking heat and air-conditioning. “Certainly climate control is one of the reasons North
Carolina starting specing A/C systems, and I think you’ll see more and more A/C specs, especially in these warm, humid states,” he said. Derek Graham, section chief of transportation
services for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, explained that his office provided the South Carolina DOE an editable version of its school bus spec, which was adopted November 2011. Air-condi- tioning has been standard in North Carolina’s buses for more than 10 years. “Te state spec committee added this, with the approv- al of our state budget office, which funds the replacement of school buses, due to more summer programs and school starting earlier in August,” he noted.
Ü STANDARDIZATION AT A CROSSROADS Manufacturers of A/C systems are seeing more states with similar
geographical operation regions adopt a common A/C spec for school buses. Dave Oberdorff of American Cooling Technology said more A/C performance is being called out “with the requirement for validation via a pull-down test rather than relying solely on the use of an A/C manu- facturer’s BTU-per-hour rating to determine A/C system capacity.” How- ever, many variables nationwide still exist, such as differences in climate among other states and regions and the economy and school funding challenges that prompt states from deleting A/C as an option. “Most feedback from individual State specification committees or individual school districts is that they are looking toward life cycle costing and how to purchase a system that might cost more up front, but be less expensive as far as the total life cycle of the bus,” said Jill Petroska of Spheros. Rick Lehnert of Trans/Air Mfg. noted that some states may inadver-
tently not be creating a level-playing field due to a lack of personnel or resources to update specifications, so they leave in older and low- er-quality components in the spec. “Instead of more standardization, we actually see a more fragmented market that lacks the standard- ization that can reduce costs and help with the integration of A/C on the production line,” he said. “Without a strong national organization, states have their own ‘solution’ that creates greater complexity.”
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