School Transportation News Magazine | September 2009


[Industry Connections]


In Brief FEDS ANNOUNCE GRANTS FOR ELECTRIC BATTERIES, DRIVES


TRAFFIC FATALITIES DOWN Te U.S. Department of Transportation


announced that the number of overall traffic fatalities reported in 2008 hit their lowest level since 1961 and that fatalities in the first three months of 2009 contin- ued to decrease. Te fatality rate, which accounts for variables like fewer miles traveled, also reached the lowest level on record. School bus information is pending. “While the number of highway deaths


in America has decreased, we still have a long way to go,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said. He added that the country has made


major strides in increasing seat belt use, curtailing impaired driving, making roads and highways safer, and maximizing vehi- cle safety, all of which play important roles in the declining death rate.


EPA CLEAN DIESEL GRANT AWARD TRIPLES FOR CONTRACTORS U.S. EPA Region 5 serving the Mid-


President Obama appeared at Navistar’s


plant in the Elkhart-Goshen metropolitan area of Indiana hard-hit by unemploy- ment to announce that the company will receive $39 million in government funds to manufacture battery-powered vehicles with a 12,100-pound gross vehicle weight rating and a range of 100 miles. Navistar acquired the plant earlier this year from the old Monaco Coach Corporation. Te grant is aimed at helping build


400 all-electric trucks next year and calls for the creation of up to 700 jobs, which includes Navistar employees and suppli- ers. Navistar added in a statement on its Web site that, within a couple of years, it expects to manufacture several thousand of these vehicles each year. Te company is also heading into its third year of manu- facturing a hybrid electric plug-in school bus through its subsidiary IC Bus. While school buses weren’t specifically


mentioned in the four-page list describing all projects to be funded by the overall $2.4 billion in grants, familiar names in- cluded: Allison Transmission, BASF, Ford, GM and the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Southern Califor- nia. To see the full list, visit www.stnonline.com/go/278.


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west awarded $2.46 million to the Na- tional School Transportation Association last month as part of the 2009 National Clean Diesel Funding Assistance Pro- gram, and the winning contractor com- panies upped the ante to $7.75 million with contributed funds. NSTA said it will use the funding to re-


place 98 buses in the fleets of two mem- bers, Dousman (Wis.) Transport and Riteway Bus Service of Milwaukee and Chicago. Durham School Services will retrofit 62 school buses with diesel par- ticulate filters, and M&M Bus Service of Annandale, Minn., will add fuel-operated heaters to its fleet. NSTA added that the project is expected to preserve or create 119 jobs and to reduce pollution in the af- fected areas by 455 tons.


NEW BRUNSWICK WON’T REQUIRE SCHOOL BUS-ONLY RULE New Brunswick’s education minister


said in July that the province won’t en- force two key recommendations of a cor- oner’s inquest into a January 2008 crash of a school van that killed seven high school basketball players and a chaperone. Cost concerns prompted Education Min-


ister Kelly Lamrock to forego restricting all school and related travel to school buses or


multi-function school activity buses and re- quiring that only people who hold certified Class 2 school bus licenses drive them. A coroner’s inquest in May made two


dozen recommendations aimed at im- proving the safety of school activity trips. Te five-person jury agreed with Cana- dian national standards published a year ago that sought a ban of all seven- and 15-passenger vans used to transport school children on activity trips like the one that crashed near Bathurst. Te driver, Wayne Lord, lost control


of a 1997 Ford Club Wagon on a familiar yet snowy road around midnight. Te ve- hicle struck the shoulder, fishtailed and was broad-sided by an oncoming tractor- trailer truck.


FERRO TAPPED AS NEW FMCSA ADMINISTRATOR


Tis past June, President Barack Obama


nominated Anne S. Ferro to serve as ad- ministrator of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. At this writing, Senate confirmation hearings were pend- ing. Ferro most recently was president of the Maryland Motor Truck Association and previously served as Maryland’s Mo- tor Vehicle Administrator.


firmed that


NATIONAL EXPRESS CORP NOT INTERESTED IN SELLING National Express Corporation con- it


received an unsolicited offer from FirstGroup to purchase its


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