tion, shared that ProAir HEPA ventilation systems were installed last August in all school buildings and through- out the fleet of 24 Blue Bird All American buses. The ProAir HEPA-6 systems were installed in coordination with the local bus dealer, Busworx. “Our superintendent had looked into it for classrooms,” explained Adkins. “Then when we got to buses and started talking about it. He said we need to do that. We need to do everything possible to try to eliminate the transmission of COVID-19 or any other viruses that could be transmitted.” She relayed during the STN EXPO Virtual conference
in late January that each unit exchanges air at a rate of 460 cubic feet per minute, which equates to exchanging air volume on the bus 12 times an hour. In addition, the HEPA filters claim to remove 99.9 percent of all par- ticulates, including viruses, from the air. The units are optimized with an air conditioning system but can run without one. Adkins relayed that ProAir recommended to Busworx that two HEPA filter systems be installed if a bus doesn’t have air conditioning. Adkins added that the district did utilize CARES Act funding to cover the majority of installation costs. ProAir
came on site and installed the systems on all 24 buses in a week and a half. Meanwhile, Busworx representatives trained district mechanics on how to change the filters and when to clean them. Dave Oberdorff, the vice president of sales and busi-
ness development for ProAir, said the company began receiving phone calls, emails and inquiries last March from student transporters nationwide asking if ProAir had any products that could help reduce the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus on their buses. With some experience providing filtration for hospitals and the medical vehicle market using HEPA Filters and UV-C Germicidal lamps, ProAir’s engineering team went to work researching how to effectively apply this tech- nology to a full size 40-foot school bus. “With about 70 percent of the COVID-19 virus being
spread thru the air attached to water particles, we knew proper air filtration had to be part of the COVID-19 con- tainment solution,” he added In early research, ProAir looked to the CDC guidelines
on how many air turns per hour were recommend for a hospital room to minimize the viral load. “And that infor-
60 School Transportation News • MARCH 2021
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