School Bus Stop Research Articles

A School Bus Routing Heuristic Algorithm Allowing Heterogeneous Fleets and Bus Stop Selection

This paper addresses a school bus routing problem formulated as a capacitated and time-constrained open vehicle routing problem with a heterogeneous fleet and single loads. This problem incorporates several realistic features, such as student eligibility, maximum walking distances, bus stop selection, maximum riding times, different types of buses, multistops, and bus dwell times. A heuristic algorithm based on an iterated local search approach is proposed for this problem. It determines the selection of bus stops from a set of potential stops, the assignment of students to the selected bus stops, and the routes along the selected bus stops. The main objectives are minimizing the number of buses used, the total student walking distance, and the total route journey time. Other aims are balancing route journey times between buses and minimizing the total number of empty seats. A set of 20 real-world problem instances are used to evaluate the performance of the algorithm. Results indicate that the algorithm finds high-quality solutions in very short amounts of computational time.

A Two-Stage Algorithm for School Bus Stop Location and Routing Problem With Walking Accessibility and Mixed Load

This paper proposes a School Bus Stop location and Routing Problem with Walking Accessibility and Mixed Load (SBSLRP-WA-ML), where the individual difference of walking accessibilities among students and the possibility of serving students attending different schools with the same bus simultaneously are considered. We first develop a mixed integer programming model for SBSLRP-WA-ML with the objective of minimizing the total commuting time, including walking time from the residence to school, in-vehicle travel time, and service time at stops. A two-stage solution method is then developed. In stage 1, an iterative clustering method based on k-means and Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) is used to locate bus stops aiming at minimizing the number of stops subject to various walking accessibilities. In stage 2, an improved ant colony optimization algorithm (IACO) integrating two local search operators is devised, which is used to generate bus routes with minimal total commuting time. A number of instances of different sizes are generated to verify the solution approach, and the influential factors with respect to total commuting time are analyzed. The model is also compared to the door-to-door school bus services. Comparison to similar methods and sensitivity analysis of parameters are also conducted to analyze the performance and robustness of the proposed approach.

COPASCities: Building Capacity for Food Systems Change for Childhood Obesity Prevention in South Carolina Communities

Community organizing is a common approach to changing a variety of community systems. The steps in community organizing include issue identification, building a base of people affected by the issue and willing to work for change, taking action, developing leaders, and evaluation of newly emerging issues. In COPASCities, year 4 we catalyzed and ethnographically observed community organizing in 4 partner communities (C1-C4). Organizing campaigns included base building through a local food guide, house meetings, and a local food pledge drive (C1); taking action to improve access to healthy foods through a produce buying cooperative that offers the SNAP Healthy Bucks incentives (C2); developing leadership through recruiting family champions for child nutrition programs (C3) and capacity building programs, including 55 leaders completing the food systems change certificate program; and evaluation of newly emerging issues with the development of a second campaign to make safer routes to school in a community where a child died waiting at a school bus stop (C4). Community organizing efforts increased the reach and sustainability of food systems change for obesity prevention by increasing community engagement in identifying relevant local issues, working for change, and building capacity for success. Organizing challenged existing power structures, and daily experiences of racism and classism shaped community leaders perceptions of powerlessness. Decision case studies were developed to build the capacity of leaders to identify and navigate these challenges. Policy and practice briefs are available. Creating systems change required leadership, development of a common vision, communication among partners, and shifting power.

Optimizing School Bus Stop Placement in Howard County, Maryland

In the current system, school bus stops in Howard County, Maryland are manually placed along the school bus routes based on safety, cost-efficiency, and many other variables. With such liberal placement, bus stops are sometimes placed unnecessarily. This issue is prevalent in many school districts and often results in needlessly close bus stop proximity. In this study, the authors implemented a GIS-based heuristic to assist school officials in optimizing their districts bus stop placement. They also estimated the proportion of county-wide bus stops that could be eliminated by this approach. Following the constraints determined by State and local guidelines, the ArcGIS Network Analyst Extension was used to identify unnecessary bus stops across the study area. The initial output was re-evaluated by school officials in order to determine if those bus stops would be eliminated. The results indicate that approximately 30% of the existing bus stops were marked as “candidates for elimination” by the GIS process. After a review of these candidates, it was determined that at least 15% of the total school bus stops could be eliminated. Statistical estimates lent credence to the benefit of a re-evaluation of these bus stops. The method developed in this study can easily be replicated. Hence, it may inspire other school systems to exercise the same approach. Additionally, the results provide a gateway for future studies in examining more efficient school bus routes with less travel time, as well as investigating how much the carbon footprint of school bus fleets can be reduced.

Portraits of Celina by Sue Whiting (review)

Reviewed by: Portraits of Celina by Sue Whiting Kate Quealy-Gainer, Assistant Editor Whiting, Sue Portraits of Celina. Switch, 2015 [352p] ISBN 978-1-63079-024-0 $16.95 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 7-10 After the sudden death of her father, sixteen-year-old Bayley relocates with her family from Sydney, Australia to a small town in the country, where they move into a house with its own tragic past. Forty years ago, Celina O’Malley, cousin to Bayley’s mom, walked to the school bus stop alone and was never seen again. Bayley finds a box of Celina’s old belongings in her room, and her fascination with the girl’s disappearance quickly becomes an obsession, especially when she begins to think that Celina’s spirit may be trying to tell her something. As Bayley’s family continues to spin out of control with grief, Celina’s ghost becomes more insistent, demanding that Bayley take revenge on the man that took Celina’s life. Whiting relies too heavily on tired tropes (a scary encounter in the forest, a “psychic” friend, etc.) for this to be truly chilling, and the subplot involving the unraveling of Bayley’s family is more a distraction than an atmospheric contribution to the chaos. The most intriguing character is Celina herself, remembered by others as a sweet, fun-loving girl but revealed as a rather cold and calculating teen through her interactions with Bayley. The plot is straightforward and the language accessible, so despite the book’s length the pages breeze by while this is not as sophisticated as Suma’s ghost story The Walls around Us (BCCB 6/15), this might still draw reluctant readers looking for a few scares. [End Page 573] Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Fun Day

Fun Day Miriam Cohen (bio) Every year, there is one day when everyone loves the three sisters. Never mind the oldest’s going to therapy next door to the school bus-stop, or the youngest’s penchant for feeding her lunch to stray animals (sometimes to a cat, sometimes to a dog), which must by now surely have translated into rabies. Or the oddness of the middle sister, who twists her thin arms strangely when she doesn’t know the answer to a question and has too many rows of pencils, all lined up exactly on her desk, point to point. This day is Fun Day. Their father, William, is CEO of a company (that sells pants? belts?), and Fun Day is like office picnics they have seen on TV—the way real farms are like the ones for ants. It makes them gloat. There is cotton candy; there are games wherein stuffed animals can be won; and there are sideshows. The oldest, Elizabeth, and the middle, Lucille, decide to try their luck at a game. “Try their luck” is a phrase belonging to their father. They know they will win. They always win on Fun Day. They can fail to squirt water into the clown’s mouth every time—every time! What are the odds of that? And still, the man behind the counter will say, We have a winner! They are the daughters of the CEO. On Fun Day, as they are not on any other day, they are royalty. Elizabeth has her eyes set on a giant bear that will not, of course, prove soft. These kinds of bears, she knows from experience, are always stuffed with what feels like newspaper. Lucille would like the enormous frog. There will be no need to fight. After they lose wildly, each will get the prize of her choosing, the screaming of other children rising up delightfully around them. [End Page 23] But Sophie, who is the youngest, decides she would like to visit the sideshow. She visits the fortune teller because she wants to know the future. This is their last Fun Day, their mother, Anna, says because it’s true: she’s dying. The chemo is a troop of good soldiers attacking the bad cancer, the doctor has said. The idea of soldiers marching through her mother’s body, attacking cells who are not soldiers and who cannot fight back, horrifies Sophie. She prefers to think of it as medicine—a kind of viscous, cherry-flavored sludge—only it doesn’t work. Sophie is curious to find out when, exactly, her mother will die. She would like to be prepared, with a face most right for mourning, which she practices at home in the bathroom mirror. The face is devastated but dignified. She will hold her chin high and lower her eyes so the eyelashes almost touch her cheekbones. She will bite, just lightly, her lower lip. Oh! the mourners will say. What a trooper! And the sleeves of her black dress will be just a little bit too long, a reminder to all that she is now a daughter without a mother. The fortune teller is stationed inside a tent that smells like lavender. There are curtains made of beads Sophie must part in order to get to her. The fortune teller has no visitors. She tells Sophie she may sit down right away. Sophie holds out her hand to shake because she is practicing the kind of motherless daughter she will be, which is a polite one. But the fortune teller simply looks at Sophie’s hand, as though she has never seen one before. Sophie lines up her heels like she’s a dancer. “I’m Sophie,” she says. “Oh!” The fortune teller sounds just like Sophie’s mother already out the door, remembering she’s forgotten her wig. Her gums show when she smiles. “You can call me Madame Felicia.” “Do you have cards?” Sophie says. “Because I’m looking to find out about death.” [End Page 24] Madame Felicia nods. She takes out a pack of cards and flips over four. She sets them down on her table one at a time. There...

Evaluation of fatal school bus related crashes and near-term crash mitigation strategies

School bus crashes are rare in comparison to other crash types, but considering all crashes that occur in and around school buses, they begin to become a noticeable problem and one that tends to attract national attention. As defined by the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), a school bus related crash is a crash that either involves a school bus or a crash where the presence of a school bus is considered as a major contributing factor. Ten years of data indicate that the number of fatal school bus related crashes has remained nearly stagnant despite an increase in the number vehicle safety systems available on the market. The findings also highlight the importance of protecting the non-bus occupants since they are the most likely to incur a serious or fatal injury in the event of a crash. As the most vulnerable user group, pedestrians (typically school-aged children) are especially at risk when crossing the road while boarding or exiting a school bus. Until new technologies for reducing school bus related crashes are designed and implemented, school transportation safety can be improved by increasing awareness of school bus stop laws and by implementing existing transportation safety initiatives at school bus stop locations.

Tenebrae

Tenebrae Jan Shoemaker (bio) Winner of the 2014 AWP Intro Journals Project in Creative Nonfiction, selected by Lee Martin I recently woke up to the jimmy bird and the weiner bird calling rakishly from the outspread arms of the evergreens. Their chatter wasn’t hard to parse: You want some of this? As it was barely spring, I envied their optimism, but I admit I bought into it a little bit too. The sky had gone from gray to blue overnight, after all; dozens of March disappointments aside, why not hope for better things? Moved by the same impulse that drove me as a child to dump my winter coat on the closet floor long before the fruit trees bloomed and tromp hunched and shivering to the school bus stop—pink cardigan slipped over my shoulders like a little maiden aunt—I reached up from my bed and pushed open the window. “Jimmy jimmy jimmy!” the report burst through the screen, then “weiner weiner weiner!” in emphatic shrieks. Back and forth they volleyed, beside themselves, it seemed, with joy. I got up and put on the kettle. Doubtless the jimmy and weiner birds have proper, more dignified names, but I don’t know what they are. No Annie Dil-lard with her nuthatches and warblers, no Thoreau with his wood thrushes and whippoorwills, I’ve not taken up with birds. Weak-eyed and too clumsy for bird-watching, which requires a will and balance for thrashing through the underbrush, I choose to ruminate instead on trees, which have a happy propensity for standing still. Sinking annually into an Adirondack chair on my crumbling patio on a spring afternoon, back aching from performing scores of little abortions—uprooting the embryonic maples that plant themselves in the English ivy each year—I squint into a panoply of light and leaf and think about complexity. Though scientists argue it’s not easy to define, biological complexity is generally conceded to match up nicely with our own thick cortexes. It is a condition much admired by those of us who, among the living multitudes, make up our planet’s proud complexity team. And while the fossil record insists more complex creatures are more evolved, who’s to say they outrank [End Page 115] in grandeur or significance life’s simpler forms? We say it—we are the world’s great sayers. Inspired by the recent intrusion of spring, which seemed to have burst through the wrong door and was no doubt scrambling for a way out, my neighbor George stepped outside and fired up his grill. As the aroma of his charring steak wafted over the fence to where I was squishing through the damp yard in wellies, rummaging for the small fists that would become fiddleheads, he waved at me with his tongs. Great as the grilling smelled even to my effete, vegetarian nose—and I took a moment to savor it—I couldn’t help considering it critically beside the seamless photosynthesis transpiring above. How elegantly those big firs feed, making a meal of soil and light. So different from our own complicated blood-rites, where even nibbling quiche in a pretty café generally starts in a slaughterhouse and ends in a sewer. Who is living a loftier life? We with the napkins on our laps? When George speared his steak and took it inside, I kicked off my muddy boots at the door and went in to sketch by the fire, where, bereft of both talent and training, I’d been trying all winter to draw. I’d taken it up because I wanted to see differently, as I believe artists do, able as they are to find lines in a landscape and, by lines, transfer a landscape to an empty page. I’d been scratching at the door of this mystery cult all my life and finally, jonesing for gnosis through trial and error, I turned to my friend Rhonda, a gifted artist herself, who teaches art at our school. She gamely sent me home with a book called Starting to Draw. For weeks, hunched over a sketch pad in a pool of lamplight, I churned out wobbly rectangles as...

Advanced audio safety apparatus

An audio safety apparatus for vehicles and equipment that operate in a reverse mode using Electro-mechanical or mechanical means adaptable to various electro-mechanical applications. The apparatus is used for cars, buses, trucks, planes or any other vehicle that moves and has a battery as part of its power supply. The audio safety apparatus has a backing safety system, a school bus stop sign arm safety system, and a driver information safety system. Through a system of hardware connected to a CPU (central processing unit), a sound chip and a waterproof speaker, the apparatus is programmed to recognize dangerous vehicle situations and alert the operator of a vehicle in an audible manner before accidents occur. The audio safety apparatus includes a driver inspection program for use before the vehicle is put in operation or put to motion. With the voice auditory warnings, the apparatus is programmed to sound when the vehicle is backing or unloading occupants, or any other potentially dangerous activity in which a passerby to the vicinity of the vehicle or the operator of the said vehicle may become subjected to injuries.

The Impact of Sex Offender Residence Restrictions: 1,000 Feet From Danger or One Step From Absurd?

Several states have enacted public policies that prohibit sex offenders who have abused children from living within close proximity to a school, park, day care center, or school bus stop. The purpose of this exploratory study was to describe the impact of residence restrictions on sex offender reintegration and to better understand sex offenders' perceptions of these laws. A survey of 135 sex offenders in Florida was conducted. Most of the molesters who responded to the survey indicated that housing restrictions increased isolation, created financial and emotional stress, and led to decreased stability. Respondents also indicated that they did not perceive residence restrictions as helpful in risk management and, in fact, reported that such restrictions may inadvertently increase triggers for reoffense. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Measuring Motorist Comprehension of Florida’s School Bus Stop Law and School Bus Signalization Devices

Motorists’ knowledge of Florida’s school bus stop law (the Law) and various school bus signalizations was investigated and is summarized. The study focused on determining the level of motorists’ knowledge regarding their driving responsibilities as defined in the Law and the meaning of the various signalizations used on school buses. To gather the necessary information, a simple one-page survey was developed and distributed to a random sample of driver’s license examining offices in the state. Summary statistics indicate that significant confusion exists on the part of motorists regarding their responsibilities as defined in the Law as well as the meaning of the various school bus signalizations. In addition to the reporting of summary statistics, many logistic regression models were developed using the sample data to determine the odds ratios of increasing motorists’ knowledge of the Law and signalizations associated with explanatory variables including age, gender, ethnicity, receipt of a citation for violation of the Law, and recent exposure to safety information about the Law and signalizations via driver training courses, public service announcements (PSAs) on TV or radio, or some other form of electronic or printed media, for example. Findings from some of the models indicate that certain factors significantly increased and decreased the odds of motorists having knowledge of the Law and various signalizations. Recommendations include increasing the awareness of motorists through PSAs, adding questions to driver’s license examinations about stopping for school buses, and decreasing the period of time between required driver’s license renewals.

Evaluation of Driver Comprehension of Word versus Symbol Highway Signs

This experiment investigated the effects of word and symbol signs on reaction time and accuracy of response. In addition, a proposed symbol sign, “SCHOOL BUS STOP AHEAD,” was evaluated using the same criteria. A tachistoscope was used to present the visual stimuli for a viewing time of 200 milliseconds. Two sets of conditions were used in the experiment. The first part consisted of a group of subjects that possessed no prior knowledge of/or special education in symbol highway signs. The second part involved a control group who received special training concerning the meaning of symbol highway signs. The stimuli were presented to 20 subjects (both male and female) aged 19 to 45, whose driving experience ranged from 3 to 29 years. The average miles driven per year varied from 1,000 to 20,000 miles. A three factor analysis of variance fixed effect model was used to analyze the data. The main factors of the model consisted of two levels of stimuli (word versus symbol signs), two levels of test conditions (prior knowledge versus no knowledge), and ten levels of different signs (traffic signs). Based upon the analysis of variance results, it was found that symbol signs do convey more accurate identification of road information than do word signs. However, it was not possible to conclude that symbol signs require less time to react to than word signs. The results of this investigation confirmed that neither the word or symbol “SCHOOL BUS STOP AHEAD” sign effectively convey the proper message.